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Hours With the Ghosts 



OR 

NINETEENTH CENTURY WITCHCRAFT 



Ltf 



ILLUSTRATED INVESTIGATIONS 



Phenomena of Spiritualism and Theosophy 



Henry Ridgely' Evans 



The first duty we owe to the world is Truth— all the Truth— nothing but 
the Truth. — "Ancient Wisdom." 



CHICAGO 
LAIRD & LEE, PUBLISHERS 



£681 LZ 100 



rA 



*<V 



Entered according to act of Congress, in the year eighteen hundred and ninety-seven. 

By WILLIAM H. LEE, 

In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



TO MY WIFE 



" It is no proof of wisdom to refuse to examine certain phe- 
nomena because we think it certain that they are impossible, as 
if our knowledge of the universe were already completed. ' ' 

— Prof. Lodge. 



' ' The most ardent Spiritist should welcome a searching in- 
quiry into the potential faculties of spirits still in the flesh. 
Until we know more of these, those other phenomena to which 
he appeals must remain unintelligible because isolated, and are 
likely to be obstinately disbelieved because they are impos- 
sible to understand." — F. W. H. Myers: "Proceedings of the 
Society for Psychical Research^ Part XVIII, April, 1891. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



Author's Preface 11 

INTRODUCTORY ARGUMENT 13 

PART FIRST: Spiritualism 18 

/. Divisions of the Subject. 18 

II. Subjective Phenomena 23 

1. Telepathy 23 

2. Table Tilting. Muscle Reading 40 

III. Physical Phenomena 46 

1. Psychography or Slate- writing 46 

2. The Master of the Mediums: D. D. Home 93 

3. Rope Tying and Holding Mediums; Materiali- 
zations 135 

The Davenport Brothers 135 

Annie Eva Fay 149 

Charles Slade 154 

Pierre I* O. A. Keeler 160 

Eusapia Paladino 175 

F. W. Tabor 182 

4. Spirit Photography 188 

5. Thought Photography 197 

6. Apparitions of the Dead 201 

IV. Conclusions 207 

PART SECOND: Madame Blavatsky and the Theoso= 

phists 210 

/. The Priestess 213 

II. Whatis Theosophy? , 237 

III. Madame Blavatsky' 's Confession 250 

IV. The Writings of Madame Blavatsky 265 

V. The Life and Death of a Famous Theosophist. . . 268 

VI. The Mantle of Madame Blavatsky 272 

VII. The Theosophical Temple 287 

VIII Conclusion 290 

List of Authorities 298 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 



PAGE. 

Fig. 1. Spirit Photograph, by the author Frontispiece 

Fig. 2. Portrait of Dr. Henry Slade 47 

Fig. 3. The Holding of the Slate ... 51 

Fig. 4. Slate No. 1 . 65 

Fig. 5. SlateNo.2 71 

Fig. 6. Slate No. 3 77 

Fig. 7. Home at the Tuileries 97 

Fig. 8. Crookes' Apparatus No. 1 116 

Fig. 9. Crookes' Apparatus No. 1 119 

Fig. 10. Crookes' Apparatus No. 1 120 

Fig. 11. Crookes' Apparatus No. 1 121 

Fig. 12, 13, 14, 15. Crookes' Diagrams 124-125 

Fig. 16. Crookes' Apparatus No. 2 . . 126 

Fig. 17. Crookes' Apparatus No. 2 127 

Fig. 18, 19, 20. Crookes' Diagrams 128-130 

Fig. 21. Hammond's Apparatus 133 

Fig. 22. The Davenport's in their Cabinet 139 

Fig. 23. Trick Tie and in Cabinet Work 143 

Fig. 24. Charles Slade's Poster 158-159 

Fig. 25. Pierre Keeler's Cabinet Seance 162 

Fig. 26. Pierre Keeler's Cabinet Curtain 163 

Fig. 27. Portrait of Eusapia Paladino 176 

Fig. 28. Eusapia before the Scientists 177 

Fig. 29. Spirit Photograph, by the author 191 

Fig. 30. Spirit Photograph, by pretended medium 195 

Fig. 31. Sigel's Original Picture of Fig. 30 199 

Fig. 32. Portrait of Madame Blavatsky 215 

Fig. 33. Mahatma Letter 221 

Fig. 34. Mahatma Envelope 225 

Fig. 35. Portrait of Col. H. S. Olcott 233 

Fig. 36. Oath of Secrecy of the Charter Members of the 

Theosophical Society 235 

Fig. 37. Portrait of W. Q. Judge 241 

Fig. 38. Portrait of Mrs. Annie Besant 273 

Fig. 39. Portrait of Mrs. Tingley 285 

Fig. 40. Autograph of Madame Blavatsky 293 



PREFACE. 



There are two great schools of thought in the world 
— materialistic and spiritualistic. With one, MATTER is 
all in all, the ultimate substratum ; mind is merely the 
result of organized matter ; everything is translated into 
terms of force, motion and the like. With the other, 
SPIRIT or mind is the ultimate substance — God; matter 
is the visible expression of this invisible and eternal Con- 
sciousness. 

Materialism is a barren, dreary, comfortless belief, 
and, in the opinion of the author, is without philosophical 
foundation. This is an age of scientific materialism, 
although of late years that materialism has been rather 
on the wane among thinking men. In an age of such 
ultra materialism, therefore, it is not strange that there 
should come a great reaction on the part of spiritually 
mi?ided people. This reaction takes the form of an in- 
creased vitality of dogmatic religion, or else culminates 
in the formation of Spiritualistic or Theosophic societies 
for the prosecution of occult phenomena. Spiritualists 
are now numbered by the million. Persons calling them- 
selves mediums present certain phenomena, physical and 
psychical, and call public attention to them, as an evi- 
dence of life beyond the grave, and the possibility of 
spiritual communication between this world and the next. 



The author has had sittings with many famous 
mediums of this country and Europe, but has seen little 
to convince him of the fact of spirit communication. The 
slate tests and so-called materializations have invariably 
been frauds. Some experiments along the line of auto- 
matic writing and psychometry, however, have demon- 
strated to the writer the truth of telepathy or thought- 
transference. The theory of telepathy explains many of 
the marvels ascribed to spirit intervention in things 
mundane. 

In this work the author has endeavored to give 
an accurate account of the lives and adventures of cele- 
brated mediums and occultists, which will prove of interest 
to the reader. The rise and growth of the Theosophical 
cult in this country and Europe is of historical interest. 
Theosophy pretends to a deeper metaphysics than Spirit- 
ualism, and numbers its adherents by the thousands; it 
is, therefore, intensely interesting to study it in its origin, 
its founder and its present leaders. 

THE AUTHOR. 



HOURS WITH THE GHOSTS. 



INTRODUCTORY ARGUMENT. 

"If a man die, shall he live again?" — this is the ques- 
tion of the ages, the Sphinx riddle that Humanity has 
been trying to solve since time began. The great minds 
of antiquity, Socrates, Pythagoras, Plato and Aristotle 
were firm in their belief in the immortality of the soul. 
The writings of Plato are luminous on the subject. The 
Mysteries of Isis and Osiris, as practiced in Egypt, and 
those of Eleusis, in Greece, taught the doctrine of the 
immortality of the individual being. The Divine 
Master of Arcane knowledge, Christ, proclaimed the 
same. In latter times,we have had such metaphysical and 
scientific thinkers as Leibnitz, Fichte, Schdling, Hegel 
and Schleiermacher advocating individual existence be- 
yond the grave. 



l 4 INTRODUCTORY ARGUMENT. 

It is a strange fact that the more materialistic the age, 
the deeper the interest in spiritual questions. The vi- 
tality and persistence of the belief in the reality of the 
spiritual world is evidence of that hunger for the ideal, 
for God, of which the Psalmist speaks — "As the heart 
panteth after water brooks so panteth my soul after Thee, 
O God!" Through the passing centuries, we have come 
into a larger, nobler conception of the Universal Life, and 
our relations to that Life, in which we live, move, and have 
our being. Granting the existence of an "Eternal and 
Infinite Spirit, the Intellectual Organizer of the mathe- 
matical laws which the physical forces obey," and con- 
ceiving ourselves as individualized -points of life in the 
Greater Life, we are constrained to believe that we bear 
within us the undying spark of divinity and immortality. 
Evolution points to eternal life as the final goal of self- 
conscious spirit, else this mighty earth-travail, the long 
ages of struggle to produce man are utterly without 
meaning. Speaking of a future life, John Fiske, a lead- 
ing American exponent of the doctrine of evolution, 
says ("The Destiny of Man"): "The doctrine 
of evolution does not allow us to take the 
atheistic view of the position of man. It is true 
that modern astronomy shows us giant balls of vapor 



INTRODUCTORY ARGUMENT. 15 

condensing into fiery suns, cooling down into planets fit 
for the support of life, and at last growing cold and rigid 
in death, like the moon. And there are indications of a 
time when systems of dead planets shall fall in upon their 
central ember that was once a sun, and the whole lifeless 
mass, thus regaining heat, shall expand into a nebulous 
cloud like that with which we started, that the work of 
condensation and evolution may begin over again. 
These Titanic events must doubtless seem to our limited 
vision like an endless and aimless series of cosmical 
changes. From the first dawning of life we see all 
things working together toward one mighty goal, the 
evolution of the most exalted spiritual qualities which 
characterize Humanity. The body is cast aside and re- 
turns to the dust of which it was made. The earth, so 
marvelously wrought to man's uses, will also be cast 
aside. So small is the value which Nature sets upon the 
perishable forms of matter! The question, then, is re- 
duced to this: Are man's highest spiritual qualities, into 
the production of which all this creative energy has 
gone, to disappear with the rest? Are we to regard the 
Creator's work as like that of a child, who builds houses 
out of blocks, just for the pleasure of knocking them 
down? For aught that science can tell us, it may be so, 



16 INTRODUCTORY ARGUMENT. 

but I can see no good reason for believing any such 
thing." 

A scientific demonstration of immortality is declared 
to be an impossibility. But why go to science for such a 
demonstration? The question belongs to the domain of 
philosophy and religion. Science deals with physical 
forces and their relations; collects and inventories facts. 
Its mission is not to establish a universal metaphysic of 
things ; that is philosophy's prerogative. All occult think- 
ers declare that life is from within, out. In other words 
life, or a spiritual principle, precedes organization. 
Science proceeds to investigate the phenomena of the 
universe in the opposite way from without, in; and pro- 
nounces life to be "a fortuitous collocation of atoms." 
Still, science has been the torch-bearer of the ages and 
has stripped the fungi of superstition from the tree of 
life. It has revealed to us the great laws of nature, 
though it has not explained them. We know that light, 
heat, and electricity are modes of motion; more than 
that we know not. Science is largely responsible for the 
materialistic philosophy in vogue to-day — a philosophy 
that sees no reason in the universe. A powerful wave of 
spiritual thought has set in, as if to counteract the ultra 



INTRODUCTORY ARGUMENT. 17 

rationalism of the age. In the vanguard of the new 
order of things are Spiritualism and Theosophy. 

Spiritualism enters the list, and declares that the im- 
mortality of the soul is a demonstrable fact. It throws 
down the gauntlet of defiance to skepticism, saying: 
"Come, I will show you that there is an existence be- 
yond the grave. Death is not a wall, but a door through 
which we pass into eternal life." Theosophy, too, has 
its occult phenomena to prove the indestructibility of 
soul-force. Both Spiritualism and Theosophy contain 
germs of truth, but both are tinctured with superstition. 
I purpose, if possible, to sift the wheat from the chaff. 
In investigating the phenomena of Spiritualism and 
Theosophy I will use the scientific as well as the phil- 
osophic method. Each will act, I hope, as corrective of 
the other. 



PART FIRST. 



SPIRITUALISM. 



I. DIVISIONS OF THE SUBJECT. 

Belief in the evocation of the spirits of the dead is as 
old as Humanity. At one period of the world's history 
it was called Thaumaturgy, at another Necromancy 
and Witchcraft, in these latter years, Spiritualism. It is 
new wine in old bottles. On March 31, 1847, at Hyde- 
ville, Wayne County, New York, occurred the cele- 
brated "knockings," the beginning of modern Spiritual- 
ism. The mediums were two little girls, Kate and 
Margaretta Fox, whose fame spread over three conti- 
nents. It is claimed by impartial investigators that the 
rappings produced in the presence of the Fox sisters 
were occasioned by natural means. Voluntary disjoint- 
ings of the muscles of the knee, or to use a medical term 
"the repeated displacement of the tendon of the peroneus 
longns muscle in the sheath in which it slides behind 
the outer malleolus" will produce certain extraordinary 
sounds, particularly when the knee is brought in con- 
tact with a table or chair. Snapping the toes in rapid 
succession will cause similar noises. The above was the 



DIVISIONS OF THE SUBJECT. ig 

explanation given of the "Hydeville and Rochester 
Knockings", by Professors Flint, Lee and Coventry, of 
Buffalo, who subjected the Fox sisters to numerous ex- 
aminations, and this explanation was confirmed many 
years after (in 1888) by the published confession of Mrs. 
Kane, nee Margaretta Fox. Spiritualism became the 
rage and professional mediums went about giving 
seances to large and interested audiences. This par- 
ticular creed is still professed by a recognized semi-re- 
ligious body in America and in Europe. The American 
mediums reaped a rich harvest in the Old World. The 
pioneer was Mrs. Hayden, a Boston medium, who went 
to England in 1852, and the table-turning mania spread 
like wild fire within a few months. 

Broadly speaking, the phenomena of modern Spiritual- 
ism may be divided into two classes: (1) Physical, (2) 
Subjective. Of the first, the "Encyclopaedia Britan- 
nica", in its brief but able review of the subject, says: 
"Those which, if correctly observed and due neither to 
conscious or unconscious trickery nor to hallucination on 
the part of the observers, exhibit a force hitherto un- 
known to science, acting in the physic:! world other- 
wise than through the brain or muscles of the medium." 
The earliest of these phenomena were the mysterious 



20 SPIRITUALISM. 

rappings and movements of furniture without apparent 
physical cause. Following these came the ringing of 
bells, playing on musical instruments, strange lights 
seen hovering about the seance-room, materializations of 
hands, faces and forms, "direct writing and drawing" 
declared to be done without human intervention, spirit 
photography, levitation, unfastening of ropes and band- 
ages, elongation of the medium's body, handling fire 
with impunity, etc. 

Of the second class, or SubjectivePhenomena,wehave 
"table-tilting and turning with contact; writing, draw- 
ing, etc., by means of the medium's hand; enhancement, 
trance-speaking, and impersonation by the medium of 
deceased persons, seeing spirits and visions and hearing 
phantom voices." 

From a general scientific point of view there are three 
ways of accounting for the physical phenomena of spirit- 
ualism : (1) Hallucination on the part of the observers ; 
(2) Conjuring; (3) A force latent in the human person- 
ality capable of moving heavy objects without muscular 
contact, and of causing "Percussive Sounds" on table- 
tops, and raps upon walls and floors. 

Hallucination has unquestionably played a part in the 
seance-room, but here again the statement of the "En- 



DIVISIONS OF THE SUBJECT. 21 

cyclopaedia Britannica" is worthy of consideration: 
"Sensory hallucination of several persons together who 
are not in a hypnotic state is a rare phenomenon, and 
therefore not a probable explanation." In my opinion, 
conjuring" will account for seven-eighths of the so- 
called phenomena of professional mediums. For the 
balance of one-eighth, neither hallucination nor legerde- 
main are satisfactory explanation. Hundreds of credible 
witnesses have borne testimony to the fact of table- 
turning and tilting and the movements of heavy objects 
without muscular contact. That such a force exists is 
now beyond cavil, call it what you will, magnetic, ner- 
vous, or psychic. Count Agenor de Gasparin, in 1854, 
conducted a series of elaborate experiments in table- 
turning and tilting, in the presence of his family and a 
number of skeptical witnesses, and was highly success- 
ful. The experiments were made in the full light of day. 
The members of the circle joined hands and concen- 
trated their minds upon the object to be moved. The 
Count published aworkonthesubject"DesTables Tour- 
nantes," in which he stated that the movements of the 
table were due to a mental or nervous force emanating 
from the human personality. This psychic energy has 
been investigated by Professor Crookes and Professor 



22 SPIRITUALISM. 

Lodge, of London, and by Doctor Elliott Coues, of 
Washington, D. C, who calls it "Telekinesis." The ex- 
istence of this force sufficiently explains such phenomena 
of the seance-room as are not attributable to hallucina- 
tion and conjuring, thus removing the necessity for the 
hypothesis of spirit intervention. In explanation of table- 
turning by "contact," I quote what J. N. Maskelyne 
says in "The Supernatural" : 

"Faraday proved to a demonstration that table-turning 
was simply the result of an unconscious muscular action 
on the part of the sitters. He constructed a little appara- 
tus to be placed beneath the hands of those pressing 
upon the table, which had a pointer to indicate any 
pressure to one side or the other. After a time, of course, 
the arms of the sitters become tired and they uncon- 
sciously press more or less to the right or left. In Fara- 
day's experiments, it always proved that this pressure 
was exerted in the direction in which the table was ex- 
pected to move, and the tell-tale, pointer showed it at 
once. There, then, we have the explanation : expectancy 
and unconscious muscular action." 



II. SUBJECTIVE PHENOMENA. 

1. Telepathy. 

The subjective phenomena of Spiritualism: — trance 
speaking, automatic writing, etc., — have engaged the at- 
tention of some of the best scientific minds of Europe 
and America, as studies of abnormal or supernormal psy- 
chological conditions. 

If there are any facts to sustain the spiritual hypothe- 
sis, these facts exist in subjective manifestations. The 
following statement will be conceded by any impartial 
investigator: A medium, or psychic, in a state of partial 
or complete hypnosis frequently gives information tran- 
scending his conscious knowledge of a subject. There 
canbebut two hypotheses for the phenomena — (1) The 
intelligence exhibited by the medium is "ultra-mun- 
dane," in other words, is the effect of spirit control, or, 
(2) it is the result of the conscious or unconscious ex- 
ercise of psychic powers on the part of the medium. 

It is well known that persons under hypnotic influence 
exhibit remarkable intelligence, notwithstanding the fact 
that the ordinary consciousness is held in abeyance. The 



24 SUBJECTIVE PHENOMENA. 

extraordinary results obtained by hypnotizers point to 
another phase of consciousness, which is none other than 
the subjective or "subliminal" self. Mediums sometimes 
induce hypnosis by self-suggestion, and while in that 
state, the subconscious mind is in a highly receptive and 
exalted condition. Mental suggestions or concepts pass 
from the mind of the sitter consciously or unconsciously 
to the mind of the medium, and are given back in the 
form of communications from the invisible world, os- 
tensibly through spirit control. It is not absolutely nec- 
essary that the medium be in the hypnotic condition to 
obtain information, but the hypnotic state seems to be 
productive of the best results. The medium is usually 
honest in his belief in the reality of such ultra-mundane 
control, but he is ignorant of the true psychology of the 
case — thought transference. 

The English Society for Psychical Research and its 
American branch have of late years popularized "tele- 
pathy", or thought transference. A series of elaborate 
investigations were made by Messrs. Edmund Gurney, 
F. W. H. Myers, and Frank Podmore, accounts of 
which are contained in the proceedings of the Society. 
Among the European investigators may be mentioned 
Messrs. Janet and Gibert, Richet, Gibotteau, and 



TELEPATHY. 25 

Schrenck-Notzing. Podmore has lately summarized the 
results of these studies in an interesting volume, "Ap- 
paritions and Thought-transference, an Examination of 
the Evidence for Telepathy." Thought Transference or 
Telepathy (from tele — at a distance, and pathos — feeling) 
he describes as "a communication between mind and 
mind other than through the known channels of the 
senses." A mass of evidence is adduced to prove the pos- 
sibility of this communication. In summing up his book 
he says : "The experimental evidence has shown that a 
simple sensation or idea may be transferred from one 
mind to another, and that this transference may take 
place alike in the normal state and in the hypnotic trance. 
* * The personal influence of the operator in 
hypnotism may perhaps be regarded as a proof presump- 
tive of telepathy." The experiments show that mental 
concepts or ideas may be transferred to a distance. 

Podmore advances the following theory in explana- 
tion of the phenomena of telepathy : 

"If we leave fluids and radiant nerve-energy on one 
side, we find practically only one mode suggested for 
the telepathic transference — viz., that the physical 
changes which are the accompaniments of thought or 
sensation in the agent are transmitted from the brain as 



26 SUBJECTIVE PHENOMENA. 

undulations in the intervening medium, and thus excite 
corresponding changes in some other brain, without any 
other portion of the organism being necessarily impli- 
cated in the transmission. This hypothesis has found its 
most philosophical champion in Dr. Ochorowicz, who 
has devoted several chapters of his book "De la Sugges- 
tion mentale," to the discussion of the various theories on 
the subject. He begins by recalling the reciprocal con- 
vertibility of all physical forces with which we are ac- 
quainted, and especially draws attention to what he calls 
the law of reversibility, a law which he illustrates by a 
description of the photophone. The photophone is an 
instrument in which a mirror is made to vibrate to the 
human voice. The mirror reflects a ray of light, which, 
vibrating in its turn, falls upon a plate of selenium, modi- 
fying its electric conductivity. The intermittent current 
so produced is transmitted through a telephone, and the 
original articulate sound is reproduced. Now in hypno- 
tized subjects — and M. Ochorowicz does not in this con- 
nection treat of thought-transference between persons in 
the normal state — the equilibrium of the nervous system, 
he sees reason to believe, is profoundly affected. The 
nerve-energy liberated in this state, he points out, 'cannot 
pass beyond' the subject's brain 'without being trans- 



TELEPATHY. 2? 

formed. Nevertheless, like any other force, it cannot 
remain isolated; like any other force it escapes, but in 
disguise. Orthodox science allows it only one way out, 
the motor nerves. These are the holes in the dark lantern 
through which the rays of light escape. * * * 
Thought remains in the brain, just as the chemical 
energy of the galvanic battery remains in the cells, but 
each is represented outside by its correlative energy, 
which in the case of the battery is called the electric cur- 
rent, but for which in the other we have as yet no name. 
In any case there is some correlative energy — for the 
currents of the motor nerves do not and cannot constitute 
the only dynamic equivalent of cerebral energy — to rep- 
resent all the complex movements of the cerebral mech- 
anism.' " 

The above hypothesis nay, or may not, afford a clue 
to the mysterious phenomena of telepathy, but it will 
doubtless satisfy to some extent those thinkers who de- 
mand physical explanations of the known and unknown 
laws of the universe. The president of the Society for 
Psychical Research (1894,) A. J. Balfour, in an address 
on the relation of the work of the Society to the general 
course of modern scientific investigation, is more cautious 
than the writers already quoted. He says: 



28 SUBJECTIVE PHENOMENA. 

"Is this telepathic action an ordinary case of action 
from a center of disturbance? Is it equally diffused in all 
directions? Is it like the light of a candle or the light 
of the sun which radiates equally into space in every di- 
rection at the same time? If it is, it must obey the law — 
at least, we should expect it to obey the law — of all other 
forces which so act through a non-absorbing medium, 
and its effects must diminish inversely as the square of 
the distance. It must, so to speak, get beaten out thinner 
and thinner the further it gets removed from its original 
source. But is this so? Is it even credible that the 
mere thoughts, or, if you please, the neural changes corre- 
sponding to these thoughts, of any individual could have 
in them the energy to produce sensible effects equally in 
all directions, for distances which do not, as far as our 
investigations go, appear to have any necessary limit? 
It is, I think, incredible; and in any case there is no 1 evi- 
dence whatever that this equal diffusion actually takes 
place. The will power, whenever will is used, or the 
thoughts, in cases where will is not used, have an effect, 
as a rule, only upon one or two individuals at most. 
There is no appearance of general diffusion. There is no 
indication of any disturbance equal at equal distances from 
its origin and radiating from it alike in every direction. 



TELEPATHY. 29 

"But if we are to reject this idea, which is the first 
which ordinary analogies would suggest, what are we 
to put in its place? Are we to suppose that there is some 
means by which telepathic energy can be directed 
through space from the agent to the patient, from the 
man who influences to the man who is influenced? If 
we are to believe this, as apparently we must, we are face 
to face not only with a fact extarordinary in itself, but 
with a kind of fact which does not fit in with anything 
we know at present in the region either of physics or of 
physiology. It is true, no doubt, that we do know plenty 
of cases where energy is directed along a given line, like 
water in a pipe, or like electrical energy along the course 
of a wire. But then in such cases there is always some 
material guide existing between the two termini, between 
the place from which the energy comes and the place 
to which the energy goes. Is there any such material 
guide in the case of telepathy? It seems absolutely im- 
possible. There is no sign of it. We can not even form 
to ourselves any notion of its character, and yet, if we 
are to take what appears to be the obvious lesson of the 
observed facts, we are forced to the conclusion that in 
some shape or other it exists." 

Telepathy once conceded, we have a satisfactory ex- 



3 o SUBJECTIVE PHENOMENA. 

planation of that class of cases in modern Spiritualism on 
the subjective side of the question. There is no need of 
the hypothesis of "disembodied spirits". 

Some years ago, I instituted a series of experiments 
with a number of celebrated spirit mediums in the line 
of thought transference, and was eminently successful 
in obtaining satisfactory results, especially with Miss 
Maggie Gaule, of Baltimore, one of the most famous of 
the latter day psychics. 

Case A. 

About three years prior to my sitting with Miss Gaule, 
a relative by marriage died of cancer of the throat at 
the Garfield Hospital, Washington, D. C. He was a 
retired army officer, with the brevet of General, and lived 
part of the time at Chambersburg, Penn., and the rest 
of the time at the National Capital. He led a very quiet 
and unassuming life, and outside of army circles knew 
but few people. He was a magnificent specimen of physi- 
cal manhood, six feet tall, with splendid chest and arms. 
His hair and beard were of a reddish color. His usual 
street dress was a sort of compromise with an army un- 
dress uniform, military cut frock-coat, f ragged and 
braided top-coat, and a Sherman hat. Without these ac- 
cessories, anyone would have recognized the military 



TELEPATHY. 31 

man in his walk and bearing. He and his wife thought 
a great deal of my mother, and frequently stopped me on 
the street to inquire, "How is Mary?" I went to Miss 
Gaule's house with the thought of General M — fixed in 
my mind and the circumstances surrounding his decease. 
The medium greeted me in a cordial manner. I sat at 
one end of the room in the shadow, and she near the 
window in a large armchair. "You wish for messages 
from the dead," she remarked abruptly. "One moment, 
let me think." She sank back in the chair, closed her 
eyes, and remained in deep thought for a minute or so, 
occasionally passing her hand across her forehead. "I 
see," she said, "standing behind you, a tall, large man 
with reddish hair and beard. He is garbed in the uni- 
form of an officer — I do not know whether of the army 
or navy. He points to his throat. Says he died of a 
throat trouble. He looks at you and calls "Mary, — how 
is Mary?" "What is his name?" I inquired, fixing my 
mind on the words David M — . "I will ask", replied 
the medium. There was a long pause. "He speaks so 
faintly I can scarcely hear him. The first letter begins 
with D, and then comes a — I can't get it. I can't hear 
it." With that she opened her eyes. 

The surprising feature about the above case was the 



32 SUBJECTIVE PHENOMENA. 

alleged spirit communication, "Mary — how is Mary?" 
I did not have this in my mind at the time; in fact I had 
completely forgotten this form of salutation on the part 
of Gen. M — , when we had met in the old days. It is 
just this sort of thing that makes spirit-converts. 

However, the cases of unconscious telepathy cited in 
the "Reports of the Society for Psychical Research," are 
sufficient, I think, to prove the existence of this phase 
of the phenomena. 

T. J. Hudson, in his work entitled "A scientific dem- 
onstration of the future life", says: * * "When a 
psychic transmits a message to his client containing in- 
formation which is in his (die psychic's) possession, it 
can not reasonably be attributed to the agency of dis- 
embodied spirits. * * When the message con- 
tains facts known to some one in his immediate presence 
and with whom he is en rapport, the agency of spirits of 
the dead cannot be presumed. Every investigator will 
doubtless admit that sub-conscious memory may enter as 
a factor in the case, and that the sub-conscious intelli- 
gence — or, to use the favorite terminology employed by 
Mr. Myers to designate the subjective mind, the 
'sublimal consciousness' — of the psychic or that of his 



TELEPATHY. 33 

client may retain and use facts which the conscious, or 
objective mind may have entirely forgotten." 

But suppose the medium relates facts that were never 
in the possession of the sitter, what are we to say then? 
Considerable controversy has been waged over this ques- 
tion, and the hypothesis of telepathy is scouted. Minot 
J. Savage has come to the conclusion that such cases 
stretch the telepathic theory too far; there can be but one 
plausible explanation — a communication from a disem- 
bodied spirit, operating through the mind of the medium. 
For the sake of lucidity, let us take an example : A has 
a relative B who dies in a foreign land under peculiar 
circumstances, unknown to A. A attendr a s ance of a 
psychic, C, and the latter relates the circumstances of B's 
death. A afterwards investigates the statements of the 
medium, and finds them correct. Can telepathy account 
for C's knowledge? I think it can. The telepathic com- 
munication was recorded in A's sub-conscious mind, he 
being en rapport with B. A unconsciously yields the 
points recorded in his sub-conscious mind to' the psychic, 
C, who by reason of his peculiar powers raises them to 
the level of conscious thought, and gives them back in 
the form of a message from the dead. 



34 SUBJECTIVE PHENOMENA. 

Case B. 

On another occasion, I went with my friend Mr. S. 
C, of Virginia, to visit Miss Gaule. Mr. S. C. had a 
young son who had recently passed the examination for 
admission to the U. S. Naval Academy, and the boy had 
accompanied his father to Baltimore to interview the 
military tailors on the subject of uniforms, etc. Miss 
Gaule in her semi-trance state made the following state- 
ment: "I see a young man busy with books and papers. 
He has successfully passed an examination, and says 
something about a uniform. Perhaps he is going to a 
military college." 

Here again we have excellent evidence of the proof 
of telepathy. 

The spelling of names is one of the surprising things 
in these experiments. On one occasion my wife had a 
sitting with Miss Gaule, and the psychic correctly 
spelled out the names of Mrs. Evans' brothers — John, 
Robert, and Dudley, the latter a family name and rather 
unusual, and described the family as living in the West. 

The following example of Telepathy occurred between 
the writer and a younger brother. 
Case C. 

In the fall of 1890, I was travelling from Washington 
to Baltimore, by the B. & P. R. R. As the train ap- 



TELEPATHY. 35 

preached Jackson Grove, a campmeeting ground, de- 
serted at that time of the year, the, engine whistle blew 
vigorously and the bell was rung continuously, which 
was something unusual, as the cars ordinarily did not 
stop at this isolated station, but whirled past. Then the 
engine slowed down and the train came to a standstill. 

"What is the matter?" exclaimed the passengers. 

"My God, look there!" shouted an excited passenger, 
leaning out of the coach window, and pointing to the 
dilapidated platform of the station. I looked out and 
beheld a decapitated human head, standing almost up- 
right in a pool of blood. With the other male passen- 
gers I rushed out of the car. The head was that of an 
old man with very white hair and beard. We found 
the body down an embankment at some little distance 
from the place of the accident. The deceased was rec- 
ognized as the owner of the Grove, a farmer living in the 
vicinity. According to the statement of the engineer, 
the old man was walking on the track; the warning 
signals were given, but proved of no avail. Being some- 
what deaf, he did not realize his danger. He attempted 
to step off the track, but the brass railing that runs along 
the side of the locomotive decapitated him like the knife 
of a guillotine. 



36 SUBJECTIVE PHENOMENA. 

When I reached Baltimore about 7 o'clock, P. M., 

I hurried down to the office of the "Baltimore News" 
and wrote out an account of the tragic affair. My work 
at the office kept me until a, late hour of the night, and 
I went home to bed ac about 1 o'clock, A. M. My 
brother, who slept in an adjoining room, had retired to 
bed and the door between our apartments was closed. 
The next morning, Sunday, I rose at 9 o'clock, and went 
down to breakfast. The family had assembled, and I 
was just in time to hear my brother relate the following: 
"I had a most peculiar dream last night. I thought I 
was on my way to Mt. Washington (he was in the 
habit of making frequent visits to this suburb of Balti- 
more on the Northern Central R. R.) We ran down 
an old man and decapitated him. I was looking out of 
the window and saw the head standing in a pool of 
blood. The hair and beard were snow white. We found 
the body not far off, and it proved to be a farmer re- 
siding in the neighborhood of Mt. Washington." 

"You will find the counterpart of that dream in the 
morning paper", I remarked seriously. "I reported the 
accident." My father called for the paper, and pro- 
ceeded to hunt its columns for the item, saying, "You 
undoubtedly transferred the impression to your brother." 



TELEPATHY. 37 

Case D. 

This is another striking evidence of telepathic com- 
munication, in which I was one of the agents. L — was 
a reporter on a Baltimore paper, and his apartments were 
the rendezvous of a coterie of Bohemian aotors, journal- 
ists, and litterati, among whom was X — , a student at 
the Johns-Hopkins University, and a poet of rare ex- 
cellence. Poets have a proverbial reputation for being 
eccentric in personal appearance; in X this eccentricity 
took the form of an undipped beard that stood out in all 
directions, giving him a savage, anarchistic look. He 
vowed never under any circumstances to shave or cut 
this hirsute appendage. 

L — came to me one day, and laughingly remarked: 
"I am being tortured by a mental obsession. X's beard 
annoys me; haunts my waking and sleeping hours. I 
must do something about it. Listen! He is coming 
down to my rooms, Saturday evening, to do some liter- 
ary work, and spend the night with me. We shall have 
supper together, and I want you to be present. Now I 
propose that we drug his coffee with some harmless 
soporific, and when he is sound asleep, tie him, and 
shave off his beard. Will you help me? I can provide 
you with a lounge to sleep on, but you must promise 
not to go to sleep until after the tragedy." 



38 SUBJECTIVE PHENOMENA. 

I agreed to assist him in his practical joke, and we 

parted, solemnly vowing that our project should be kept 

secret. 

This was on Tuesday, and no communication was had 

with X, until Saturday morning, when L — and I met 

him on Charles street. 

"Don't forget to-night," exclaimed L— "I have in- 
vited E to join us in our Epicurean feast." 

"I will be there," said X. "By the way, let me relate 
a curious dream I had last night. I dreamt I came down 
to your rooms, and had supper. E — ■ was present. You 
fellows gave me something to drink which contained a 
drug, and I fell asleep on the bed. After that you tied 
my hands, and shaved off my beard. When I awoke I 
was terribly mad. I burst the cords that fastened my 
wrists together, and springing to my feet, cut L— se- 
verely with the razor." 

"That settles the matter", said L — , "his beard is safe 
from me". When we told X of our conspiracy to re- 
lieve him of his poetic hirsute appendage, he evinced the 
greatest astonishment. As will be seen, every particular 
of the practical joke had been transferred to his mind, 
the drugging of the coffee, the tying, and the shaving. 

Telepathy is a logical explanation of many of the 



TELEPATHY. 39 

ghostly visitations of which the Society for Psychical Re- 
search has collected such a mass of data. For example: 
A dies, let us say in India and B,a near relative or friend, 
residing in England, sees a vision of A in a dream or in 
the waking state. A clasps his hands, and seems to utter 
the words, "I am dying". When the news comes of A's 
death, the time of the occurrence coincides with the see- 
ing of the vision. The spiritualist's theory is that the 
ghost of A was an actual entity. One of the difficulties 
in the way of such an hypothesis is the clothing of the 
deceased — can that, too, be disembodied? Thought trans- 
ference (conscious or unconscious), I think, is the only 
rational explanation of such phantasms. The vision seen 
by the percipient is not an objective but a subjective 
thing — a hallucination produced by the unknown force 
called telepathy. The vision need not coincide exactly 
with the date of the death of the transmitter but may 
make its appearance years afterwards, remaining latent 
in the subjective mind of the percipient. It may, as is 
frequently the case, be revealed by a medium in a seance. 
Many thoughtful writers combat the .telepathic explana- 
tion of phantasms of the dead, claiming that when such 
are seen long after the death of persons, they 
afford indubitable evidence of the reality of spirit visita- 



40 SUBJECTIVE PHENOMENA. 

tion. The reader is referred to the proceedings of the 
Society for Psychical Research for a detailed discussion 
of the pros and cons of this most interesting- subject. 

Many of the so-called materializations of the seance- 
room may be accounted for by hallucinations superin- 
duced by telepathic suggestions from the mind of the 
medium or sitters. But, in my opinion, the greater num- 
ber of these manifestations of spirit power are the result 
of trickery pure and simple — theatrical beards and wigs, 
muslin and gossamer robes, etc., being the paraphernalia 
used to impersonate the shades of the departed, the 
imaginations of the sitters doing the rest. 

2. Table-Tilting— Muscle Reading. 

In regard to Table-Tilting with contact, I have given 
Faraday's conclusions on the subject, — unconscious 
muscular action on the part of the sitter or sitters. In 
the case of Automatic Writing (particularly with the 
planchette), unconscious muscular action is the proper 
explanation for the movements of the apparatus. "Pro- 
fessor Augusto Tamburini, of Italy, author of 'Spiritismo 
e Telepatia', a cautious investigator of psychical prob- 
lems," says a reviewer in the Proceedings of the Society 
for Psychical Research (Volume IX, p. 226), "accepts 
the verdict of all competent observers that imposture is 



TABLE-TILTING. 41 

inadmissible as a general explanation, and endorses the 
view that the muscular action which causes the move- 
ments of the table or the pencil is produced by the sublim- 
inal consciousness. He. explains the definite and vary- 
ing characters of the supposed authors of the messages 
as the result of self-suggestion. As by hypnotic or post- 
hypnotic suggestion a subject may be made to think he 
is Napoleon or a chimney sweep, so, by self-suggestion, 
the subliminal consciousness may be made to think that 
he is X and Y, and to tilt or wrap messages in the 
character of X and Y." 

Professor Tamburini's explanation fails to account for 
the innumerable well authenticated cases where facts are 
obtained not within the conscious knowledge of the 
planchette writer or table-tilter. If telepathy does not 
enter into these cases, what does? 

There are many exhibitions, of thought transference by 
public psychics, that are thought transference in name 
only. One must be on one's guard against these pre- 
tenders to occult powers. I refer to men like our late 
compatriot, Washington Irving Bishop — "muscle- 
reader" par excellence whose fame extended throughout 
the civilized world. 

Muscle-Reading is performed in the following man- 



$2 SUBJECTIVE PHENOMENA. 

ner: Let us take, for example, the reading of the figures 
on a bank-note. The subject gazes intently at the fig- 
ures on a note, and fixes them in his mind. The muscle- 
reader, blindfolded or not, takes a crayon in his right 
hand, and lightly clasps the hand or wrist of the subject 
with his left. He then writes on a blackboard the correct 
figures on the note. This is one of the most difficult feats 
in the repertoire of the muscle-reader, and was excelled 
in by Bishop and Stuart Cumberland. Charles Gatchell, 
an authority on the subject, says that the above named 
men were the only muscle-readers who have ever ac- 
complished the feat. Geometrical designs can also be 
reproduced on a blackboard. The finding of objects 
hidden in an adjoining room, or upon the person of a 
spectator in a public hall, or at a distance, are also ac- 
complished by skillful muscle readers, either by clasping 
the hand of the subject, or one end of a short wire held 
by him. Says Gatchell, in the "Forum" for April, 1891 : 
"Success in muscle-reading depends upon the powers of 
the principal and upon the susceptibility of the subject. 
The latter must be capable of mental concentration; he 
must exert no muscular self-control; he must obey his 
every impulse. Under these conditions, the phenomena 
are in accordance with known laws of physiology. On 



MUSCLE-READING. 43 

the part of the principal, muscle-reading consists of an 
acute perception of the slight action of another's muscles. 
On the part of the subject, it involves a nervous im- 
pulse, accompanied by muscular action. The mind of 
the subject is in a state of tension or expectancy. A 
sudden release from this state excites, momentarily, an 
increased activity in the cells of the cerebral cortex. 
Since the ideational centres, as is usually held, correspond 
to the motor centres, the nervous action causes a motor 
impulse to be transmitted to the muscles.. * * In 
making his way to the location of a hidden object, the 
subject usually does not lead the muscle-reader, but the 
muscle-reader leads 'the subject. That is to say, so long 
as the muscle-reader moves in the right direction, the 
subject gives no indication, but passively moves with 
him. The muscle-reader perceives nothing unusual. 
But, the subject's mind being intently fixed on a certain 
course, the instant that the muscle-reader deviates from 
that course there is a slight, involuntary tremor, or mus- 
cular thrill, on the part of the subject, due to the sudden 
interruption of his previous state of mental tension. The 
muscle-reader, almost unconsciously, takes note of the 
delicate signal, and alters his course to the proper one, 
again leading his willing subject. In a word, he follows 



44 SUBJECTIVE PHENOMENA. 

the line of the least resistance. In other cases the condi- 
tions are reversed; the subject unwittingly leads the prin- 
cipal. 

"The discovery of a bank-note number requires a 
slightly different explanation. The conditions are these: 
The subject is intently thinking of a certain figure. His 
mind is in a state of expectant attention. He is waiting 
for but one thing in the world to happen — for another 
to give audible expression to the name of that which he 
has in mind. The instant that the conditions are ful- 
filled, the mind of the subject is released from its state 
of tension, and the accompanying nervous action causes 
a slight muscular tremor, which is perceived by the acute 
senses of the muscle-reader. This explanation applies, 
also, to the pointing out of one pin among many, or of a 
letter or a figure on a chart. The conditions involved 
in the tracing of a figure on a blackboard or other sur-. 
face are of a like order, although this is a severer test 
of a muscle-reader's powers. So long as the muscle- 
reader moves the crayon in the right direction, he is 
permitted to do so; but when he deviates from the proper 
course, the subject, whose hand or wrist he clasps, in- 
voluntarily indicates the fact by the usual slight mus- 
cular tremor. This, of course, is done involuntarily; but 



MUSCLE-READING. 45 

if he is fulfilling the conditions demanded of all subjects, 
absolute concentration of attention and absence of mus- 
cular control — he unconsciously obeys his impulse. A 
billiard player does the same when he follows the driven 
ball with his cue, as if by sheer force of will he could 
induce it to alter its course. The ivory is uninfluenced; 
the human ball obeys." 



III. PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

1. Psychography, or Slate- Writing. 

One of the most interesting phases of modern med- 
iumship, on the physical side, is psychography, or slate- 
writing. After an investigation extending over ten years, 
I am of the opinion that the majority of slate-writing 
feats are the results of conjuring. The process generally 
used is the following. 

The medium takes two slates, binds them together, 
after first having deposited a small bit of chalk or slate 
pencil between their surfaces, and either holds them in 
his hands, or lays them on the table. Soon the scratch- 
ing of the pencil is heard, and when the cords are re- 
moved a spirit message is found upon the surface of one 
of the slates. I will endeavor to explain the "modus 
operandi" of these startling experiments. 

Some years ago, the most famous of the slate-writing 
mediums was Dr. Henry Slade, of New York, with 
whom I had several sittings. I was unable to penetrate 
the mystery of his performance, until the summer of 



SLATE-WRITING. 



47 




FIG. 2. DR. HENRY SLADE. 



1889, when light was thrown upon the subject by the 
conjurer C — whom I met in Baltimore. 

"Do you know the medium Slade?" I asked him. 

"Yes," said he, "and he is a conjurer like myself. I've 
had sittings with him. Come to my rooms to-night, and 
I will explain the secret workings of the medium's slate- 



48 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

writing. But first I will treat you to a regular seance." 
On my way to C's home I tried to put myself in the 
frame of mind of a genuine seeker after transcendental 
knowledge. I recalled all the stories of mysterious rap- 
pings and ghostly visitations I had read or heard of. It 
was just the night for such eerie musings. Black clouds 
were scurrying across the face of the moon like so many 
mediaeval witches mounted on the proverbial broom- 
sticks en route for a mad sabbat in some lonely church- 
yard. The prestidigitateur's pension was a great, lum- 
bering, gloomy old house, in an old quarter of Balti- 
more. The windows were tightly closed and only the 
feeble glimmer of gaslight was emitted through the 
cracks of the shutters. I rang the bell and Mr. C's 
stage-assistant, a pale-faced young man, came to the 
door, relieved me of my light overcoat and hat, and 
ushered me upstairs into the conjurer's sitting-room. 

A large, baize-covered table stood in the centre of + he 
apartment, and a cabinet with a black curtain drawn 
across it occupied a position in a deep alcove. Sus- 
pended from the roof of the cabinet was a large guitar. 
I took a chair and waited patiently for the appearance 
of the anti-Spiritualist, after having first examined every- 
thing in the room — table, cabinet, and musical instru- 



SLATE-WRITING. 49 

ments — but I discovered no evidence of trickery any- 
where. I waited and waited, but no C — . "Can he 
have forgotten me?" I said to myself. Suddenly a loud 
rap resounded on the table top, followed by a succession 
of raps from the cabinet; and the guitar began to play. 
I was quite startled. When the music ceased the door 
opened, and C — entered. 

"The spirits are in force to-night," he remarked with a 
meaning smile, as he slightly diminished the light in 
the apartment. 

"Yes," I replied. "How did you do it?" 

"All in good time, my dear ghost-seer," was the an- 
swer. "Let us try first a few of Dr. Slade's best slate 
tecfs." 

So saying he handed me a slate and directed me to 
wash it carefully on both sides with a damp cloth. I 
did so and passed it back to him. Scattering some tiny 
fragments of pencil upon it, he held the slate pressed 
against the under surface of the table leaf, the fingers 
of his right hand holding the slate, his thumb grasping 
the leaf. C — then requested me to hold the other end 
of the slate in a similar fashion, and took my right hand 
in his left. Heavy raps were heard on the table-top, and 
I felt the fingers of a spirit hand plucking at my gar- 



50 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

ments from beneath the table. C — 's body seemed pos- 
sessed with some strange convulsion, his hands quivered, 
and his eyes had a glassy look. Listening attentively, I 
heard the sound of a pencil writing on the slate. 

"Take care!" gasped the conjurer, breathlessly. 

The slate was jerked violently out of our hands by 
some powerful agency, but the medium regained it, and 
again pressed it against the table as before. In a little 
while he brought the slate up and there upon its upper 
surface was a spirit message, addressed to me — "Are you 
convinced now? — D. D. Home." 

At this juncture there came a knock at the door, and 
C — , with the slate in his hand, went to see who it was. 
It proved to be the pale-faced assistant. A few words in 
a low tone of voice were exchanged between them, and 
the conjurer returned to the table, excusing the interrup- 
tion by remarking, "Some one to see me, that is all, but 
don't hurry, for I have another test to show you." After 
thoroughly washing both sides of the slate he placed 
it, with a slate pencil, under a chafing-dish cover in the 
center of the table. We joined hands and awaited de- 
velopments. 

Being tolerably well acquainted with conjuring de- 
vices, I manifested but little surprise in the first test 



SLATE-WRITING. 



5i 




FIG. 3. THE HOLDING OF THE SLATE. 



52 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

when the spirit message was written, because the magi- 
cian had his -fingers on the slate. But in this test the 
slate was not in his possession ; how then could the writ- 
ing be accomplished? 

"Hush!" said C — , "is there a spirit present?" A re- 
sponsive rap resounded on the table, and after a few 
minutes' silence, the mysterious scratching of the slate- 
pencil began. I was nonplussed. 

"Turn over the slate," said the juggler. 

I complied with his request and found a long message 
to me, covering the entire side of the slate. It was signed 
"Cagliostro." 

"What do you think of Dr. Slade's slate tests?" in- 
quired C — . 

"Splendid!" I replied, "but how are they done?" 

His explanations made the seeming marvel perfectly 
plain. While the slate is being examined in the first 
test, the medium slips on a thimble with a piece of slate 
pencil attached or else has a tiny bit of pencil under his 
finger nail. In the act of holding the slate under the 
table, he writes the short message backwards on its under 
side. It becomes necessary, however, to turn the slate 
over before exhibiting it to the sitter, so that the writing 
may appear to have been written on its upper surf ace — 



SLATE-WRITING. 53 

the side that has been pressed to the table. To accom- 
plish this the medium pretends to go into a soil of neu- 
rotic convulsion, during which state the slate is jerked 
away from the sitter, presumably by spirit power, and is 
turned over in the required position. It is not imme- 
diately brought up for examination but is held for a few 
seconds underneath the table top, and then produced with 
a certain amount of deliberation. 

The special difficulty of this trick consists in the me- 
dium's ability to write in reverse upon the under surface 
of the slate. If he wrote from left to right, in the ordi- 
nary method, it would, of course, reverse the message 
when the slate is examined, and give a decided clue to 
the mystery. This inscribing in reverse, or mirror writ- 
ing, as it is often called, is exceedingly difficult to do, 
but nothing is impossible to a Slade. 

But how is the writing done on the slate in the second 
test? asks the curious reader. Nothing easier! The 
servant who raps at the door brings with him, concealed 
under his coat, a second slate, upon which the long 
message is written. Over the writing is a pad cut from 
a book-slate, exactly fitting the frame of the prepared 
slate. It is impossible to detect the fraud when the light 
in the room is a trifle obscure. The medium makes an 



54 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

exchange of slates, returns to the table, washes both sides 
of the trick slate, and carelessly exhibits it to the sitter, 
the writing being protected of course by the pad. Be- 
fore placing the slate under the chafing-dish cover, he 
lets the pad drop into his lap. Now comes a crucial point 
in the imposture : the writing heard beneath the slate, 
supposed to be the work of a disembodied spirit. The 
medium under cover of his handkerchief removes from 
his pocket an instrument known as a "pencil-clamp." 
This clamp consists of a small block of wood with two 
sharp steel points protruding from the upper edge and a 
piece of slate pencil fixed in the lower. The medium 
presses the steel points into the under surface of the 
table with sufficient force to attach the block securely 
to the table, and then rubs a pencil, previously attached 
to his right knee by silk sutures, against the side of the 
pencil fastened to the apparatus. The noise produced 
thereby exactly simulates that of writing upon a slate. 
In my case the illusion was perfect. During the exami- 
nation of the message, the medium has ample oppor- 
tunity to secrete the false pad and the clamp in his 
pocket. Instead of having a servant bring the slate to 
him and making the exchange described above, he may 
have the trick slate concealed about him before the se- 



SLATE-WRITING. 55 

ance begins, with the message written on it, and adroitly 
make the substitution while the sitter is engaged in low- 
ering the light. Dr. Slade almost invariably adopted the 
first-mentioned exchange, because it enabled his con- 
federate to write a lucid message to the sitter. 

An examination of the sitter's overcoat in the hall fre- 
quently yielded valuable information in the way of names 
and initials extracted from letters, sealed or unsealed. 
Sealed letters? Yes; it is an easy matter to steam a 
gummed envelope, open it, and seal it again. Another 
method is to wet the sealed envelope with a sponge 
dipped in alcohol. The writing will show up tolerably 
well if written upon a card. In a very short time the 
envelope will dry and exhibit no evidence of having been 
tampered with. 

And now as to the rest of the phenomena witnessed 
that evening in C — 's room. The raps on the table top 
were the result of an ingenious, hidden mechanism, 
worked by electricity ; the mysterious hand that operated 
under the table was the juggler's right foot. He wore 
slippers and had the toe part of one stocking cut away. 
By dropping the slipper from his foot he was enabled 
to pull the edge of my coat, lift and shove a chair away, 
and perform sundry other ghostly evolutions, thanks to 



5 6 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

a well trained big toe. Dr. Slade who was long and 
lithe of limb, worked this dodge to perfection, prior to 
the paralytic attack which partly disabled his . lower 
limbs. 

The stringed instrument which played in the cabinet 
was arranged as follows: Inside of the guitar was a 
small musical box, so arranged that the steel vibrating 
tongues of the box came in contact with a small piece 
of writing paper. When the box was set to going by 
means of an electric current, it closely imitated the 
twanging of a guitar, just as a sheet of music when laid 
on the strings of a piano simulates a banjo. This spirit 
guitar is a very useful instrument in the hands of a med- 
ium. It may be made to play when it is attached to a 
telescopic rod, and waved in phosphorescent curves over 
the heads of a circle of believers in the dark seance. 

I shall now sum up the subject of Dr. Slade's spirit- 
slate writing, (Fig. 3) and endeavor to show how grossly 
exaggerated the reports of the medium's performances 
have been, and the reasons for such misstatements. No 
one who is not a professional or amateur prestidigitateur 
can correctly report what he sees at a spiritualistic seance. 

It is not so much the swiftness of the hand that counts 
in conjuring but the ability to force the attention of the 



SLATE-WRITING. 57 

spectators in different directions away from the crucial 
point of the trick. The really important part of the test, 
then, is hidden from the audience, who imagine they 
haveseenallwhenthey have not. SaysDr. MaxDessoir: 
"It must therefore be regarded as a piece of rare naivete 
if a reporter asserts that in the description of his subjec- 
tive conclusions he is giving the exact objective pro- 
cesses." 

This will be seen in Mr. Davey's experiments. Mr. 
Davey, a member of the London Society for Psychical 
Research, and an amateur magician who possessed great 
dexterity in the slate-writing business, gave a series of 
exhibitions before a number of persons, but did not in- 
form them that the results were due to prestidigitation. 
No entrance fee was charged for the seances, but the 
sitters, who were fully impressed with the genuineness of 
the affair, were requested to submit written reports of 
what they had seen. These letters, published in vol. iv 
of the Proceedings of the Society, are admirable ex- 
amples of mal-observation, for no one detected Mr. 
Davey exchanging slates and doing the writing. 

"The sources of error," says Dr. Max Dessoir, in an 
article reproduced in the "Open Court," "through which 
such strange reports arise, may be arranged in four 



58 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

groups. First, the observer interpolates a fact which did 
not happen, but which he is led to believe has happened; 
thus, he imagines he has examined the slate when as a 
fact he never has. Second, he confuses two similar ideas ; 
he thinks he has carefully examined the slate, when in 
reality he has only done so hastily, or in ignorance of the 
point at issue. Third, the witness changes the order of 
events a little in consequence of a very natural deception 
of memory; he believes he tested the slate later than he 
actually did. Fourth and last, he passes over certain de- 
tails which were purposely described to him as insignifi- 
cant; he does not notice that the 'medium' asks him to 
close a window, and that the trick is thus rendered pos- 
sible." 

Similar experiments in slate-writing were conducted 
by the Seybert Commission with Mr. Harry Kellar, the 
conjurer, after sittings were had with Dr. Slade, and the 
magician outdid the medium. The Seybert Commission 
found none of Slade's tests genuine, and officially denied 
"the extraordinary stories of his performances with 
locked slates which constitute a large part of his fame." 

Dr. Slade began his Spiritualistic operations in Lon- 
don in the year 1876, and charged a fee of a guinea a 
head for seances lasting a few minutes. Crowds went to 



SLATE-WRITING. 59 

see him and he reaped a golden harvest from the credu- 
lous, until the grand fiasco came. Slade was caught in 
one of his juggling stances and exposed by Prof. Lan- 
caster and Dr. Donkin. The result was a criminal prose- 
cution and a sensational trial lasting three days at the 
Bow Street Police Court. Mr. Maskelyne, the conjurer, 
was summoned as an expert witness and performed a 
number of the medium's tricks in the witness box. The 
court sentenced Slade to three months' hard labor, but 
he took an appeal from the magistrate's decision. The 
appeal was sustained on the ground of a technical flaw 
in the indictment, and the medium fled to the Continent 
before new summons could be served. He visited Paris, 
Leipsic, Berlin, St. Petersburg and other cities, giving 
seances before Royalty and before distinguished mem- 
bers of scientific societies ; and afterwards went to Aus- 
tralia. He made money fast and spent it fast, but it took 
all of his ingenuity to elude the clutches of the police. 
In 1892, we find him the inmate of a workhouse in one 
of our Western towns, penniless, friendless and a 
lunatic. 

Slade's stances with Prof. Zoellner, of Berlin, in 1878, 
attracted wide attention, and did more to advertise his 
fame as a medium than anything: else in his career. 



6o PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

Zoellner's belief in the genuineness of Slack's medi- 
umistic marvels led him to write a curious work, entitled, 
"Transcendental Physics," being an inquiry into the 
"fourth dimension of space." Poor old Zoellner, he was 
half insane when these seances were held! We have the 
undisputed authority of the Seybert Commission for the 
correctness of this statement. 

In Hamburg, Dr. Borchert wrote to Slade offering 
him one thousand marks if he would produce writing be- 
tween locked slates, similar to the writing alleged to have 
been executed at the Zoellner seances, but the medium 
took no notice of the professor's letter. The conjurer, 
Carl Wilmann, with two friends, had a sitting with 
Slade, but without satisfactory results for the medium. 
"Slade," says Wilmann, "was unable to distract my at- 
tention from the crucial point of the trick, and threw 
down the slates on the table in disgust, remarking: T 
can not obtain any results to-day, the power that controls 
me is exhausted. Come tomorrow!' " That tomorrow 
never arrived for Willmann and his friends; Slade did 
not keep his appointment, nor could Wilmann succeed 
in obtaining another sitting with him. The medium had 
been warned by friends that Wilmann was an expert 
professor of legerdemain. 



SLATE-WRITING. 6l 

It was in 1886 that Slade created such a furore in 
Hamburg in Spiritualistic circles. A talented conjurer 
of that city, named Schradieck, after a few weeks' prac- 
tice succeeded in eclipsing Slade. He learned to write 
in reverse on slates, and produced writing in various 
colored chalks. Another one of his experiments was 
making the slate disappear from one side of the table 
where it was held a la Slade and appear at the opposite 
end of the table suddenly, as if held up to view by a 
spirit hand. Wilmann describes the effect as startling in 
the extreme and says Schradieck produced it by means 
of his left foot. After Slade's departure from Hamburg, 
spirit mediums sprang up like toadstools in a single 
night. Wilmann in his crusade against these worthies 
had many interesting experiences. He gives in his work 
"ModerneWunder" several exposes of mediumistic tricks, 
two of which, in the sealed slate line, are very ingenious. 
The medium takes a slate (one furnished by the sitter 
if preferred), wipes it on both sides with a wet sponge, 
and then wraps it up carefully in a piece of ordinary 
white wrapping paper, allowing the package to be sealed 
and corded ad libitum. Notwithstanding all the pre- 
cautions used, a message appears on the slate. It is ac- 
complished in this way. A message in reverse is written 



62 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

on the wrapping paper with a camel's hair brush or 
pointed stick, dipped in some sticky substance, and finely 
powdered slate pencil dust is scattered over the writing. 
At a little distance, especially in a dim light, it is im- 
possible to discover the writing as it blends very well 
with the white paper. In wrapping up the slate the med- 
ium presses the writing on the paper against the sur- 
face of the slate and the chirography adheres thereto, 
very much as the greasy drawing on a lithographer's 
stone prints on paper. 

In the other experiment the medium uses a papier 
mache slate, set in the usual wooden frame. A papier 
mache pad is prepared with a spirit message on one sur- 
face; on the other is pasted a piece of newspaper. This 
pad is laid, written side down, on a sheet of newspaper. 
After the genuine slate has been washed, the medium 
proceeds to wrap it up in the newspaper, and presses the 
trick pad, writing up, into the frame of the slate where 
it exactly fits into a groove prepared for the purpose. 

Since Dr. Slade's retirement from the mediumistic 
field, Pierre L. O. A. Keeler's fame as a slate-writing 
medium has been spread broadcast. He oscillates be- 
tween Boston, New York, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Bal- 
timore and Washington, and has a very large and fash- 



SLATE- WRITING. 63 

ionable clientele. He gives evening materializing seances 
of the cabinet type three times a week at his rooms. 
During the day he gives private slate tests which are 
very popular. 

I had a sitting with him on the afternoon of April 
24th, 1895. In order to gain his confidence, I went as 
one witnessing a slate seance for the fmt> time, that is, 
I accepted his slates, and had no prepared questions. 

I was ushered into a small, back parlor by the medium 
who closed the folding doors. We were alone. I made 
a mental photograph of the surroundings. There was 
no furniture except a table and two chairs placed near 
the window. Over the table was a faded cloth, hanging 
some eight or ten inches below the table. Upon it were 
several pads of paper and a heterogeneous assortment 
of lead pencils. Leaning against the mantelpiece, within 
a foot or so of the medium's chair, were some thirty or 
forty slates. 

"Take a seat", said Mr. Keeler pointing to a chair. I 
sat down, whereupon he seated himself opposite me, 
remarking as he did so, "Have you brought slates with 
you?" 

"I have not," was my reply. 

"Then, if you have no objection," he said, "we will use 



64 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

two of mine. Please examine these two slates, wash 
them clean with this damp cloth, and dry them." With 
that he passed me two ordinary school-slates, which I 
inspected closely, and carefully cleaned. 

"Be kind enough to place the slates to one side," said 
Keeler. I complied. 

"Have you prepared any slips with the names of 
friends, relatives, or others, who have passed into spirit 
life, with questions for them to answer?" 

"I have not," I replied. 

"Kindly do so then," he answered, "and take your 
time about it. There is a pad on the table. Please write 
but a single question on each slip. Then fold the slips 
and place them on the table." I did so. 

"I will also make one," he continued, "it is to my 
spirit control, George Christy." He wrote a name on a 
slip of paper, folded it, and tossed it among those I had 
prepared, passing his hand over them and fingering 
them, saying, "It is necessary to get a psychic impres- 
sion from them." We sat in silence several minutes. 

After a little while Mr. Keeler said : "I do not know 
whether or not we shall get any responses this after- 
noon, but have patience." Again we waited. "Suppose 
you write a few more slips," he remarked, "perhaps we'll 



SLATE-WRITING. 6? 

have better luck. Be sure and address them to people 
who were old enough to write before they passed into 
spirit life." This surprised me, but I complied with his 
wishes. While writing I glanced furtively at him from 
time to time ; his hands were in his lap, concealed by the 
table cloth. He looked at me occasionally, then at his 
lap, fixedly. / am satisfied that he opened some of my 
slips, having adroitly abstracted them from the table in 
the act of fingering them. 

He directed me to take my handkerchief and tie the 
two slates on the table tightly together, holding the slates 
in his hands as I did so. I laid the slates on the table 
before me, and we waited. "I think we will succeed 
this time in getting responses to some of the questions. 
Let us hold the slates." He grasped them with fingers 
and thumbs at one end, and I at the other in like 
manner, holding the slates about two inches above the 
table. We listened attentively, and soon was heard the 
scratching noise of a slate pencil moving upon a slate. 
The sound seemed directly under the slate, and was 
sufficiently impressive to startle any person making a 
slate test for the first time, and unacquainted with the 
multifarious devices of the sleight-of-hand artist. 

"Hold the slates tightly, please!" said Mr. Keeler, as 



68 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

a convulsive tremor shook his hands. I grasped firmly 
my end of the slates, and waited further developments. 
The faint tap of a slate pencil upon a slate was heard, 
and the medium announced that the communications 
were finished. I untied the handkerchief, and turned up 
the inner surfaces of the slates. Upon one of them sev- 
eral messages were written, and signed. Other com- 
munications were received during the sitting. After the 
first messages were received, and while I was engaged 
in reading them, Keeler quickly picked up a slate from 
the floor, clapped it upon the clean slate remaining on the 
table, and requested me to tie the two rapidly together 
with my handkerchief before the influence was lost. At 
a signal from him I unfastened the slates and found an- 
other set of answers. The same proceeding was gone 
through for the third set. The imitation of a pencil writ- 
ing upon a slate was either made by the apparatus, 
described in the seance with C — in the first part of this 
chapter, or by some other contrivance; more than 
likely by simply scratching with his finger on the 
under surface of the slate. While my attention 
was absorbed in the act of writing my second set 
of questions, he prepared answers to two of my first set 
and substituted a prepared slate for the cleaned slate on 



SLATE-WRITING. 6 9 

the table. / was sure he zvas writing under the table; 
I heard the faint rubbing of a soft bit of pencil upon 
the surface of a slate. His hands were in his lap and 
his eyes were fixed downwards. Several times I saw him 
put his fingers into his vest pockets, and he appeared to 
bring up small particles of something, which I believe 
were bits of the white and colored crayons used in writ- 
ing the messages. His quiet audacity was surprising. 
I give below the questions and answers with my com- 
ments thereon: 

First Slate. Fig. 4. 

QUESTION. 

To Marnier- 
Tell me the name of your dead brother? 

(Signed) Harry R. Evans. 

ANSWER. 

You must nob think of me as one gone forever from 
you. You have made conditions by and through which 
I can return to you, and so long as I can do this I can 
not feel unhappy. So dear one, rest in the assurance 
that you are helping me, and that I am doing all I can 
to help you. Let us make the best of it all and help each 
other as best we can, then all will be well. My home in 
spirit life is beautiful and awaiting you. I will be the 



70 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

first to greet you. / have no dead brother. All of us are 
living. I am Mamie — . (The medium here cleverly 
evades giving a name by an equivoque.) 

QUESTION. 

To Len — 

Tell me the cause of your death, and the circum- 
stances surrounding it? 

(Signed) Harry R. Evans. 

ANSWER. 

Harry! I am very glad to see you. I am happy. 
You must be reconciled, and not mourn me as dead! 
I will try to come again soon, when I am stronger and 
tell of my decease. — Len. (He again evades an an- 
swer.) 

Second Slate. Fig. 5. 

QUESTION. 

To A. D. B— 

When and where did you die? 

(Signed) Harry R. Evans. 

ANSWER. 

This all seems so strange coming back and writing 
just as one would if they were in the earth life and com- 
municating with a friend. What a blessed privilege it is. 
I am so happy. Oh, I would not come back. It is so 



SLATE-WRITING. 73 

restful here. No pain or sorrow. Dear, do not think 
I have forgotten you, I constantly think of you and wish 
that you, too, might view these lovely scenes of glorious 
beauty. You must rest with the thought that when your 
life is ended upon the earth, / will be the first to meet you. 
Now be patient and hopeful until we meet where there 
is no more parting. I am sincerely, A. D. B. (No an- 
swer at all. Observe error in first sentence: "as one 
would if they were — ." A. D. B. was an educated gen- 
tleman, and not given to such ungrammatical expres- 
sions. 

Third Slate. Fig. 6. 

QUESTION. 

To B. G.— 

Can you recall any of the conversations we had 
together on the B. and P. R. R. cars? 

(Signed) H. R. Evans. 

ANSWER. 

O my dear one, I can only write a few lines that you 
may know that I see and hear you as you call upon me. 
I do not forget you. When I am stronger will come 
again. I do not know what conversation you refer to in 
the cars. B. G. 

(Again evades answering. B. G. was very much in- 



74 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

terestecl in the drama, and talked continuously about 
the stage.) 

QUESTION. 

To C. J.— 

Where did you die, and from what disease? 

(Signed) H. R. Evans. 

ANSWER. 

I know the days and weeks seem long and lonely to 
you without me. I do not forget you ; am doing the best 
I can to help you. C. J. — . 

(Still another evasion of a straightforward question. 
The lady in spirit life to whom the question was ad- 
dressed died of consumption in a Roman Catholic Con- 
vent. She was only a society acquaintance of the writer, 
and not on such terms of intimacy as to warrant Mr. 
Keeler's reply.) 

In one corner of Slate No. 2 was the following, 
written with a yellow crayon: "This is remarkable. 
How did you know we could come? — H. K. Evans." 
Scrawled across the face of Slate No. 3, in red pencil, 
was a communication from George Christy, Mr. Keeler's 
spirit control, reading as follows: "Many are here who 

G. C. (George Christy)" (The remainder is so 

badly written, as to be indecipherable.) 



SLATE-WRITING. 75 

On carefully analyzing the various communications it 
will be observed that the handwriting of the messages 
frdm Mamie — and B G. — are similar, possessing the 
same characteristics as regards letter formation, etc. It 
does not require a professional expert in chirography to 
detect this fact. One and the same person wrote the 
messages purporting to come from Mamie R — , Len — , 
B. G. — , C. J. — , and A. D. B. In fact, the writing on 
all the slates is, in my opinion, the work of Mr. Pierre 
Keeler. 

The longer communications were doubtless prepared 
beforehand, being general in nature and conveying 
about the same information that any departed spirit 
might give to any inquiring mortal, but, as will be ob- 
served, giving no adequate answers to the queries, with 
the exception of the last two sentences, which were 
written by the medium, after he became acquainted with 
the tenor of the questions upon the folded slips. The very 
short communications are written in a careless hand, 
such as a man would dash off hastily, There is an at- 
tempt at disguise, but a clumsy one, the letters still re- 
taining the characteristics of the more deliberate chiro- 
graphy of the long communications. A close inspection 



76 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

of the slates reveals the exact similarity of the y's, u's, 
Fs, g's, h's, m's and n's. 

The handwriting of messages on slates should be, and 
is claimed to be, adequate evidence of the genuineness of 
the communication, for are we nob supposed to know 
the handwriting of our friends? 

Possibly Mr. Keeler would claim that the handwriting 
was the work of his control "Geo. Christy", who acted 
as a sort of amanuensis for the spirits. If this be so, why 
the attempts at disguise, and bungling attempts at that? 

In the seance with Mr. Keeler, I subjected him to no 
tests. He had everything his own way. / should have 
brought my own marked slates with me and never let 
the?n out of my sight for an instant, I should have 
stibjected the table to a close examination, and requested 
the medium to move or rather myself removed the 
^collection of slates against the mantel, placed so con- 
veniently within his reach. I did not do this, because 
of his well known irascibility. He would probably have 
shown me the door and refused a sitting on any terms, 
as he has done to many skeptics. I was anxious to meet 
Keeler, and preferred playing the novice rather than not 
get a slate test from one of the best-known and most 
famous of modern slate-writing mediums. 



SLATE-WRITING. 79 

After what has been stated, I think there can be no 
shadow of doubt that the medium abstracted by sleight- 
of-hand some of the paper slips containing my written 
questions, read them under cover of the table, and did the 
slate-writing himself. All of these slate-tests, where 
pellets or slips of paper are used, are performed in a sim- 
ilar manner, as will be seen from the expose published 
by the Society for Psychical Research. In vol. viii of 
the proceedings of that association will be found a 
number of revelations, one of which throws consider- 
able light on the Keeler tests. The sitter was Dr. 
Richard Hodgson, and the medium was a Mrs. Gillett. 
Says Dr. Hodgson: 

"Under pretence of 'magnetising' the pellets prepared 
by the sitter, or folding them more tightly, she substi- 
tutes a pellet of her own for one of the sitter's. Reading 
the sitter's pellet below the table, she writes the answer 
on one of her own slates, a pile of which, out of the 
sitter's view, she keeps on a chair by her side. She 
then takes a second slate, places it on the table, and 
sponges and dries both sides, after which she takes the 
first slate, and turning the side upon which she has 
written towards herself, rubs it in several places with a 
dry cloth or the ends of her fingers as though cleaning 



So PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

it. She then places it, writing downward, on the other 
slate on the table, and sponges and dries the upper sur- 
face of it. She then pretends to take one of the pellets 
on the table and put it between the two slates. What she 
does, however, is to bring the pellet up from below 
the table, take another of the sitter's pellets on the table 
into her hand, and place the pellet which she has brought 
up from below the table between the slates, keeping in 
her hand the pellet just taken from the top of the table. 
The final step is to place a rubber band round both 
slates, in doing which she turns both slates 
over together. She professes to get the writing 
without the use of any chalk or pencil. Some of her 
slates are prepared beforehand with messages or draw- 
ings. More interesting, perhaps, because of its bold- 
ness, is her method of producing writing on the sitter's 
own slates. Under the pretence of 'magnetising' these 
she cleans them several times, rubs them with her hands, 
stands them up on end together, and while they are in 
this position between herself and the sitter she writes 
with one hand on the slate-side nearest to herself, holding 
the slates erect with the other hand. Later on, she lays 
both slates together flat on the table again, the writing 
being on the undermost surface. She then sponges the 



SLATE-WRITING. 8l 

upper surface of the top slate, turns it over, and sponges 
its other surface. She next withdraws the bottom slate, 
places it on top and sponges its top surface, keeping its 
under surface carefully concealed. The final step, the 
reversal, is made, as in the other case, with the help of 
the rubber band. Mrs. Gillett has probably other 
methods, also. Those which I have described were all 
that I witnessed at my single sitting with her." 

My friend, Dr. L. M. Taylor, of Washington, D.C., an 
investigator of Spiritualistic phenomena, and skeptical 
like myself of the objective phases of the subject, has had 
many sittings with Keeler for independent slate-writing. 
One seance in particular he is fond of relating: 

"On one occasion, after I had written my slips, folded 
them up', and tossed them on the table, I said to Keeler 
who was obtaining his 'psychic' impression of them, T 
wish, if possible, to have a spirit tell me the numbers and 
the maker's name engraved in my watch. I have never 
taken the trouble to look at the numbers, consequently 
I do not know them.' 'Your request is an unusual one/ 
replied the medium, 'but I will endeavor to gratify it' 
We had some conversations on the subject that lasted 
several minutes. Suddenly he picked up a slate pencil, 
and scrawled the name, /. S. Granger on the upper sur- 



82 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

face of one of my slates; the two slates had been pre- 
viously tied together with my -handkerchief and laid on 
the table in front of me. 'You recognize that name, do 
you not?' asked Keeler. 'Yes/ I replied, 'that is one of 
the names I wrote on the slips. J. S. Granger was an 
old friend of mine who died some years ago. He was a 
brother-in-law of Stephen A. Douglass.' 'If you wish 
to facilitate matters,' said Keeler, 'place your watch on 
top of the slates, concealed beneath the handkerchief, 
otherwise we may have to wait an hour or more without 
obtaining results, and there are a number of persons 
waiting for me in the ante-room. My time you see is 
limited.' 

"I detached my watch from its chain, and placed it 
in the required position. Keeler then took a piece of 
black cloth, used to clean slates, and laid it over my 
slates. Finally he requested me to take the covered slates 
and hold them in my lap. I took care to feel through 
the cloth that the watch was still beneath the handker- 
chief. In a short time I was directed to uncover the 
slates, and untie them, which I did. Upon the inner 
surface of one of the slates the following message was 
written: 'Dear Friend, Stephen is with me. I have 
been through that beautiful watch of yours, and, if I see 



SLATE-WRITING. 83 

correcty, the number is 163131. On the inside I see 

this— E. Howard & Co., Boston, 211327. And then 
your name as follows: Dr. L. M. Taylor, 1221 Mass. 
Ave., N. W., Washington, D. C. Signed J. M. Granger.' 

"I then compared the name and numbers in my watch 
with those on the slate, and found the latter correct, with 
the exception of one number. A relative of mine was 
present in the room during this seance, and I showed 
her the communication on the slate. Afterwards we 
passed the slate to Keeler who examined it closely. 
When he handed it back to me, I was surprised to see 
that the incorrect number was mysteriously changed to 
the proper one." 

This is a very interesting test, indeed, because of its 
apparently impromptu character. I have seen similar 
feats performed by professional conjurers as well as 
mediums. A dummy watch is substituted for the sitter's 
watch, and after the medium has ascertained the name 
and numbers on the sitter's timepiece, he succeeds in 
adroitly exchanging it again for the dummy, thanks to 
the black cloth. The writing on the slate in the above 
seance was evidently produced in the same way as that 
described in my sitting with Keeler, after he had ascer- 
tained the name on the slip. The name of Stephen, of 



84 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

course, was directly obtained from Dr. Taylor. Not 
having been an eye witness of Keeler's movements in 
the watch test, I am unable to say how closely Dr. 
Taylor's description coincides with the medium's actual 
operations. 

In May, 1897, Mr. Pierre Keeler was in Washington, 
D.C.,as usual. My friend, Dr. Taylor, who was desirous 
ofputtingthe medium to another crucial test,wrote down 
a list of names on a sheet of paper — cognomens of an- 
cient Egyptian, Chaldean, and Grecian priests and phi- 
losophers — folded the paper, and carefully sealed it in an 
envelope. He took ten slates with him, all of them 
marked with a private mark of his own. Mr. Keeler 
eyed the envelope dubiously, but passed no criticisms 
on the doctor's precautions to prevent trickery. The 
two men sat down at a table and waited for the spirits 
to manifest. Dr. Taylor, on this occasion, was abso- 
lutely certain that his slates had not been tampered 
with, and that the medium had not succeeded in open- 
ing the envelope. In a little while the comedy of the 
pencil-scratching between the tied slates began. 

"Ah", exclaimed the physician, "a message at last!" 
Then he thought to himself, "can the medium possibly 
have deluded my senses by some hypnotic power, and 



SLATE-WRITING. 85 

adroitly opened that envelope without my being aware 
of the fact? But no, that is impossible!" 

Mr. Keeler took the slates away from Dr. Taylor, and 
quickly opened them, accidentally dropping one of them 
behind the table. In a second, however, he brought up 
the slate, and remarked: "How awkward of me. I beg 
your pardon," etc. On the surface of this slate was 
written the following sentence: "See some other medi- 
um; d — n it! — George Christy." Dr. Taylor is positive, 
as he has repeatedly told me, that this message was not 
inscribed on his own marked slate, but was written by 
the medium on one of his own. The exchange, of course, 
must have been effected in the pretended accidental drop- 
ping of the doctor's slate by the medium. This is a very 
old expedient among pretenders to spirit power. All 
conjurers are familiar with the device. Imro Fox, the 
American magician, uses it constantly in his entertain- 
ments, with capital effect. 

Dr. Taylor, unfortunately, did not succeed in getting 
possession of the medium's prepared slate. Another ex- 
change was undoubtedlv made by Mr. Keeler, and the 
physician had returned to him his own marked slate. 
When he got home that afternoon, and had time to care- 
fully scrutinize his slates, he found that they bore no 



86 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

evidence of having been written upon at all. Having 
also examined these slates, I am prepared to add 
my testimony to that of Dr. Taylor. 

The reader will see from the above-described seance 
that unless the medium (or a confederate) is enabled to 
read the names and questions, prepared by the sitter, 
his hands are practically tied in all experiments in 
psychology. 

When investigators bring their own marked slates 
with them, screwed tightly together, and sealed, the me- 
dium has to adopt different tactics from those employed 
in the tests before mentioned. He has to call in the aid 
of a confederate. The audacity of the sealed-slate test 
is without parallel in the annals of pretended medium- 
ship. For an insight into the secrets of this phase of 
psychography, the reading public is indebted to a me- 
dium, the anonymous author of a remarkably interesting 
work, "Revelations of a Spirit Medium." Many skeptical 
investigators have been converted to Spiritualism by 
these tests. They invariably say to you when approached 
on the subject: "I took my own marked slates, care- 
fully screwed together, to the medium, and had lengthy 
messages written upon them by spirit power. These 
slates never left my hands for a second," I will quote 



SLATE-WRITING. 87 

what the writer of "Revelations of a Spirit Medium" says 
on the subject: 

"No man ever received independent slate-writing be- 
tween slates fastened together that he did not allow out 
of his hands a few seconds. Scores of persons will tell 
you that they have received writing under those condi- 
tions through the mediumship of the writer; but the 
writer will tell you how he fooled them and how you can 
do so if you see fit. 

"In the first place you will rent a house with a cellar 
in connection. Cut a trap-door one foot square through 
the floor between the sills on which the floor is laid. 
Procure a fur floor mat with long hair. Cut a square 
out of the mat and tack it to the top of the trap door. 
Tack the mat fast to the floor, for some one may visit 
you who will want to raise it up. 

"Explain the presence of the fur, by saying it is an ab- 
sorbent of magnetic forces, through which you produce 
the writing. Over the rug place a heavy pine table about 
four feet square; and over the table a heavy cover that 
reaches the floor on all sides. Put your assistant in the 
cellar with a coal-oil stove, a tea-kettle of hot water, dif- 
ferent colored letter wax and lead pencils, a screw 
driver, a pair of nippers, a pair of pliers, a pair of scis- 



88 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

sors and an assortment of wire brads. You .are ready 
for business. 

"When your sitter comes in you will notice his slates, 
if he brings a pair, and see if they are secured in any way 
that your man in the cellar can not duplicate. If they 
are, you can touch his slates with your finger and say to 
him that you can not use his slates on account of the 
'magnetism' with which they are saturated. He will 
know nothing of 'magnetic conditions' and will ask you 
what he is to do about it. 

"You will furnish him a pair of new slates with water 
and cloths to clean them. You also furnish him paper 
to write his questions on and the screws, wax, paper 
and mucilage to secure them with. He will write his 
questions and fasten the slates securely together. 

"You now conduct him to your seance-room andinvite 
inspection of your table and surroundings. After the 
examination has been made you will seat the sitter at 
one side of the table with 1 is side and arm next it. If 
he desires to keep hold of the slates a signal agreed upon 
between yourself and your assistant will cause the spirit 
in the cellar to open the trap door, which opens down- 
wards, and to push through the floor and into position 
-where the sitter can grasp one end of it, a pair of dummy 



SLATE-WRITING. 89 

slates. This dummy your assistant will continue to hold 
until the sitter has taken hold of it after the following 
performance: 

"Your assistant lets you know everything is ready by 
touching your foot. You now reach and take the sitter's 
slates and put them below the table, and under it, telling 
the sitter to put his hand under from his side and hold 
them with you. He puts his hand under and gets hold 
of the dummy slates held by your assistant. 

"Your assistant holds on until you have stood the 
slates on end, leaning against the table leg, and have 
got hold of the dummy. He then takes the sitter's slates 
below and closes the trap. He proceeds to open them, 
read the questions, answer them and refasten the slates. 

"You will be entertaining your sitter by twitching and 
jerking and making clairvoyant and clairaudient guesses 
for him. 

"When your assistant touches your foot you will know 
that he is ready to make the exchange again, by which 
the sitter will get hold of the slates he fastened. When 
you get the signal you give a snort and jump that jerks 
the end of the slates from the sitter's hand. He is now 
given the end of the slates held by your assistant, and 
you will allow the assistant to take the dummy. After 



9 o PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

sitting a moment or two longer, you will tell the sitter 
to take out his slates and examine them if he chooses. 
Many times they do not open the slates until they reach 
their homes. 

"This, reader, is the man who will declare that he 
furnished the slates and did not allow them out of his 
hands a minute. 

"The usual method of obtaining the writing is for the 
medium to hold the slates alone. When this is the case 
the medium passes the slates below, and receives in re- 
turn a dummy which he is continually thumping on the 
under side of the table for the purpose of showing the 
sitter that the slates are there all the time. 

"It is not necessary that you should use a cellar to 
get this phase of 'independent slate-writing.' You could 
place your table against a partition door and by fitting 
one of the small panels with hinges and bolts, would 
have a very convenient way of obtaining the assistance 
of the spirit in the next room. It is also possible to make 
a trap in a room that has a wooden wainscoting." 

Before closing this brief survey of slate-writing ex- 
periments, I must describe an exceedingly ingenious 
trick, indeed, bordering on the marvelous. It is die re- 
cent invention of a Western conjurer, and solves the 



SLATE-WRITING. 91 

problem of actually writing between locked slates by 
physical means. The effect is as follows: You request 
the sitter to take two slates, wash them carefully, and tie 
them together, after first having placed a bit of chalk 
between their surfaces. Hold them under the table for 
a minute, and then hand them to the sitter for examina- 
tion. A name, or a short sentence, in answer to some 
question, will be found scrawled across the upper surface 
of the bottom slate. It is accomplished in this way. 
You take a small pellet of iron or steel, coat it with muci- 
lage, and dip it into chalk or slate-pencil dust. This 
dust will adhere and harden into a consistent mass, after 
a little while, completely concealing the metal, and caus- 
ing the whole to resemble a bit of chalk. Take this sup- 
posed pellet of chalk from your vest pocket and place it 
between the slates; hold the latter level beneath a table, 
and by moving the poles of a strong magnet against the 
surface of the under sl? f e, you can cause the iron or steel 
to Write a name or sentence, thanks to its coating of 
chalk dust. It is better to use slates with rather deep 
frames, in order that the chalked metal may write with 
facility. It requires considerable practice to write with 
ease in the manner described above. The first thing of 
course is to locate the position of the chalk between the 



92 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

locked slates. To enable you to do this, place the sup- 
posed chalk in one corner of slate No. 1 before covering 
with slate No. 2, or else exactly in the center of slate No. 
2. In this way you will have no difficulty in affecting 
the metal with the magnet, when the slates are held un- 
der the table. There are various ways of holding the 
slates; one, is to ask the sitter to hold one end, while you 
hold the other, five or six inches above the table. The 
light is put out, and you take the magnet from your 
pocket and execute the writing. The noise of the mag- 
net passing over the surface of the under slate serves to 
represent a disembodied spirit as doing the writing. 



D. D. HOME. 93 

2. The Master of the Mediums. 

One of the most remarkable personalities serving as an 
exponent of Spiritualism was Daniel Dunglas Home, the 
Napoleon of necromancy, and the Past Grand Master 
of Mediums. His career reads like a romance. He 
lived in a sort of twilight land, and hob-nobbed with 
kings, queens and other people of noble blood. 
"Something unsubstantial, ghostly, 

Seems this Theurgist, 

In deep meditation mostly 

Wrapped, as in a mist. 

Vague, phantasmal and unreal, 

To our thoughts he seems, 

Walking in a world ideal, 

In a land of dreams." 
He wound his serpentine way into the best society of 
London, Paris, Berlin, Rome, and St. Petersburg — "al- 
ways despising filthy lucre," as Maskelyn remarks, "but 
never refusing a diamond worth ten times the amount he 
would have received in cash, or some present, which the 
host of the house at which he happened to be manifesting 
always felt constrained to offer." 

This thaumaturgist of the Nineteenth Century was 
born near Edinburg, Scotland, on March 20, 1833, and 



94 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

came of a family reported to be gifted with "second 
sight." His father, William Home, was a natural son 
of Alexander, tenth Earl of Home. Strange phenom- 
ena occurred during the medium's childhood. At the 
age of nine he was adopted by his aunt, Mrs. McNeill 
Cook, who brought him to America. He began giv- 
ing seances about the year 1852. Among the notable 
men who attended these early "sittings" were William 
Cullen Bryant, Professors Wells and Hare, and Judge 
Edmonds. 

Home had a tall, slight figure, a fair and freckled face 
— before disease made it the '"►lor of yellow wax — keen, 
slaty-blue eyes, thin bloodless lips, a rather snub nose, 
and curly auburn hair. His manners, though forward, 
were agreeable, and he recited such poetry as Poe's 
"Raven" and "Ulalume" with powerful effect. He was 
altogether a weird sort of personage. His principal me- 
diumistic manifestations were rappings, table-tipping, 
ghostly materialization?, playing on sealed musical in- 
struments, levitation, and handling fire with impunity. 

In 1855 he launched his necromantic bark on Euro- 
pean waters. No man since Cagliostro ever created so 
profound a sensation in the Old World. He wrote his 
reminiscences in two large volumes, but little credence 



D. D. HOME. 95 

can be given them, as they are full of extravagant state- 
ments and wild fantasies. 

The London Punch (May 9th, 1868), printed the fol- 
lowing effusion on the medium, a sort of parody on 
"Home, Sweet Home:" 

Through realms Thaumaturgic the student may roam, 
And not) light on a worker of wonders like Home. 
Cagliostro himself might descend from his chair, 
And set up our Daniel as Grand-Cophta there — 

Home, Home, Dan. Home, 

No medium like Home. 

Spirit legs, spirit hands, he gives table and chair; 

Gravitation defying, he flies in the air; 

But the fact to which henceforth his fame should be 

pinned, 
Is his power to raise, not himself but the wind ! — 

Home, Home, Dan. Home, 

No medium like Home. 

Robert Browning made him the* subject of his cele- 
brated satirical poem, "Mr. Sludge, the Medium." 

Some of the most celebrated scientific and literary 
personages of England became interested in his myster- 
ious abilities, and among his intimate friends were the 



96 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

Earl of Dunraven, Mary Howitt, Mrs. S. C. Hall, Prof. 
Wallace, and Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton. There is 
good authority for believing that Home was 
the mysterious Margrave of Bulwer's weird novel, 
"A Strange Story." Bulwer was an ardent believer 
in the supernatural and Home spent many days 
at Knebworth amid a select coterie of ghost-seers. 
The famous novelist relates that as Home sat with 
him in the library of Knebworth, conversing upon 
politics, social matters, books or other chance topics, the 
chairs rocked and the tables were suspended in mid-air. 

When the medium was requested to exert his power 
and found himself in condition, it is alleged, he would 
rise and float about the room. This in Spiritualistic par- 
lance is termed "levitation". At Knebworth and other 
places, some of the most prominent people of the day 
claim to have seen Home lift himself up and sail tran- 
quilly out of a window, around the house, and come in 
by another window. 

The Earl of Dunraven told many stories equally 
strange of performances that were given in his presence. 
The Earl declared that he had many times seen Home 
elongate and shorten his body, and cause the closed 
piano to play by putting his fingers on the lid. 




FIG. 7— HOME AT THE TUILEKIES, 



D. D. HOME. 99 

In the autumn of 1855 the famous medium went to 
Florence; there, also, the spirit manifestations secured 
him the entree into the best society of the old Italian city. 
In his memoirs he speaks of an incident occurring 
through his mediumship, at a seance given in Florence: 
"Upon one occasion, while the Countess C — was seated 
at one of Erard's grand-action pianos, it rose and bal- 
anced itself in the air, during the whole time she was 
playing." An English lady, resident at Florence, in a 
supposed haunted house, procured the services of Home 
to exorcise the ghost. They sat at a table in the sitting- 
room, and raps were heard proceeding from that piece 
of furniture, and rustling sounds in the room as of a per- 
son moving about in a heavy garment. The spirit being 
adjured in the name of the "Holy Trinity" to leave the 
premises, the demonstrations ceased. 

In February, 1856, the medium joined the retinue of 
Count B — , a Polish nobleman, and went to Naples with 
his patron. From Naples to Rome was the next step, 
and, in the Eternal City, the medium joined the Romish 
Church, and was adjured by the Pope to abandon spirit 
seances forever. In 1858 we find Home in St. Peters- 
burg, where he married the youngest daughter of Gen- 
eral Count de Kroll,of Russia, and a goddaughter of the 



IOO PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

Emperor Nicholas, the marriage taking place on Sun- 
day, August 1, 1858, in the private chapel attached to 
the house of the lady's brother-in-law, the Count Greg- 
oire Koucheleff-Besborodko. It was a very notable af- 
fair, and Alexander Dumas came from Paris to attend 
the ceremony. Home's spirit power which had left him 
since his conversion to the Roman Catholic faith now re- 
turned in full force, it is said, and he saw standing near 
him at the wedding the spirit form of his mother. In 
1862 his wife died at the Chateau Laroche, near Perig- 
neux, France, and the medium repaired to Rome for the 
purpose of studying sculpture. The reports of the spirit 
phenomena constantly attending Home's presence 
reached the ears of the Papal authorities and he was 
compelled to leave *he city, notwithstanding the fact, that 
he gave positive assurance that he would give no seance. 
He was actually charged with being a sorcerer, like Cag- 
liostro, an accusation that reads very strange in the Nine- 
teenth Century. This affair embittered Home against 
the Church, and he abandoned Roman Catholicism for 
the Greek Church. 

Afterthe Roman fiasco, the famous medium returned 
to England to give Spiritualistic lectures and stances. A 
writer in "All the Year Round", gives the following pen 



D. D. HOME. IOI 

picture of the medium, as he appeared in 1866: "He is 
a tall, thin man, with broad square shoulders, suggest- 
ive of a suit of clothes hung upon an iron cross. His 
hair is long and yellow; his teeth are large, glittering 
and sharp ; his eyes are a pale grey, with a redness about 
the eye-lids, which comes and goes in a ghastly manner, 
as he talks. When he shows his glittering sharp teeth, 
and that red line comes round his slowly rolling eyes, 
he is not a pleasant sight to look upon. His hands 
are long, white and bony, and on taking them 
you discover that they are icy cold." A suit of clothes 
hung upon an iron cross is a weird touch in this pen 
picture. 

Home about this time intended going upon the stage, 
but abandoned the idea to become the secretary of the 
"Spiritual Atheneum", a society formed for the investi- 
gation of psychic phenomena. 

One of the most notable passages in the life of the 
great medium was the famous law suit in which he was 
concerned in England. In 1866 he became acquainted 
with a wealthy lady, Mrs. Jane Lyons. In his role of 
medium she consulted him constantly about the welfare 
of her husband in the spirit world, and her business af- 
fairs. She gave him £33,000 for his services. Rela- 



102 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

tives and friends of Mrs. Lyons, however, saw in Home 
a cunning adventurer who was preying upon a weak- 
minded woman. A suit was instituted against the medi- 
um to recover the money, and the case became a cause 
celebre in the annals of the English courts. 

In the autumn of 1871, Home, who before that time, 
had been quite a "lion" at the court of Napoleon III and 
Eugene, followed the German army from Sedan to Ver- 
sailles, and was hand-in-glove with the King of Prussia. 
His second marriage took place in October, 1871, at 
Paris, and after a brief honeymoon in England he visited 
St. Petersburg with his wife, who was a member of the 
noble Russian family of Alsakoff. 

On the 21st of June, 1886, the great American ghost- 
seer died of consumption, at Auteuil,near Paris, France. 
For years he was out of health, and he ascribed his weak- 
ness to the expenditure of vital force in working wonders 
during the earlier part of his career. 

He was buried at St. Germain-en-Laye, with the 
rites of the Russian Church. The funeral was a very 
simple one, not more than twenty persons being present, 
all of whom were in full evening dress. The idea was to 
emphasize the Spiritualists' belief that death is not a 



D. D. HOME. 103 

subject for mourning, but is liberation, an occasion for 
rejoicing. 

The curious reader will find many accounts of Home's 
invulnerability to fire while in the trance state, notably 
those of Prof. Crookes, contained in the proceedings of 
the Society for Psychical Research. In the March, 1868, 
number of "Human Nature," Mr. H. D. Jencken writes 
as follows concerning a seance given by the medium: 

"Mr. Home, (after various manifestations) said, 'we 
have gladly shown you our power over fluids, we will 
now show you our power over solids.' He then knelt 
down before the hearth, and deliberately breaking up a 
glowing piece of coal in the fire place, took up a largish 
lump of incandescenb coal and placing -the same in his 
left hand, proceeded to explain that caloric had been ex- 
tracted by a process known to them (the spirits), and 
that the heat could in part be returned. This he proved 
by alternately cooling and heating the coal; and to con- 
vince us of the fact, allowed us to handle the coal which 
had become cool, then suddenly resumed its heat suffi- 
cient to burn one, as I again touched it. I examined Mr. 
Home's hand, and quite satisfied myself that no artificial 
means had been employed to protect the skin, which did 
not even retain the smell of smoke. Mr. Home then re- 



104 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

seated himself, and shortly awoke from his trance quite 
pale and exhausted." 

Other witnesses of the above experiment were Lord 
Lindsay, Lord Adare, Miss Douglas,Mr.S. C. Hall, Mr. 
W. H. Harrison and Prof. Wallace. Mr. H. Nisbet, of 
Glasgow, relates {Human Nature, Feb. 1870) that in his 
own home in January, 1870, Mr. Home took a red hot 
coal from the grate and put it in the hands of a lady and 
gentleman to whom it felt only warm. Subsequently he 
placed the same on a folded newspaper, the result being 
a hole burnt through eight layers of paper. Taking an- 
other blazing coal he laid it on the same journal, and 
carried it around the apartment for upwards of three 
minutes, without scorching the paper. 

Among the crowned heads and famous people before 
whom Mr. Home appeared were Napoleon III and the 
Empress Eugenie, Queen Victoria, King Louis I and 
King Maximilian of Bavaria, the Emperor of Russia, 
the King and Queen of Wurtemberg, the Duchess of 
Hamilton, the CrownPrince of Prussia and old Gen. Von 
Moltke. Alexander Dumas the elder, was a constant 
companion of the medium for a long time, and wrote 
columns about him. 

Napoleon III had two sittings with Home — and it is 






D. D. HOME. 105 

said Home materialized the spirit of the first Napoleon, 
who appeared in his familiar cocked hat, gray overcoat 
and dark green uniform with white facings. "My fate?" 
asked Louis, trembling with awe. "Like mine — dis- 
crowned, and death in exile," replied the ghost; then it 
vanished. The Empress swooned and Napoleon III 
fell back in his chair as if about to faint. The medium 
in his first seance with the French Emperor succeeded 
only in materializing some flowers and a spirit hand, 
which the Emperor was permitted to grasp. 

Celia Logan, the journalist, in writing of one of 
Home's s ances at a nobleman's house in London, says: 

"On this occasion the medium announced that he 
would produce balls of fire and illuminated hands. Fail- 
ing in the former, he declared that the spirits were not 
strong enough for that to-night, and so he would have 
to confine himself to showing the luminous hands. 

"The house was darkened and Home groped his way 
alone to the head of the broad staircase, where every few 
minutes a pair of luminous hands were thrown up. The 
audience was satisfied generally. One lady, however, 
was not, and whispered to me — she was a half-hearted 
Spiritualist — that it looked to her as if he had rubbed his 
own hands over with lucifer matches. 



106 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

"The host stood near the mantel piece and had seen 
Home abstractedly place a small bottle upon it when 
he left the room for the staircase. That bottle the host 
quietly slipped into his pocket. Upon examination the 
next day it was found to contain phosphorated olive oil 
or some similar preparation. 

"The host had declared himself to have seen Home 
float through the air from one side of the room to the 
other, lift a piano several feet in the air by simply plac- 
ing a finger upon it, and had seen him materialize 
disembodied spirits; but after the discovery of the 
phosphorus trick he dropped Home at once." 

It is a significant! fact that the medium while giving 
seances in Paris in 1857 refused to meet Houdin, the 
renowned prestidigitateur. 

I shall now attempt an expose of Home's physical 
phenomena. Home's extraordinary feat of alternately 
cooling and heating a lump of coal taken from a blazing 
fire, as related by Mr. H. D. Jeneken and others, is easily 
explained. It is a juggling trick. The "coal" is a piece 
of spongy platinum which bears a close resemblance to 
a lump of half burnt coal, and is palmed in the hand, as 
a prestidigitateur conceals a coin, a pack of cards, an 
egg, or a small lemon. The medium or magician ad- 



D. D. HOME. 107 

vances to the grate and pretends to take a genuine lump 
of coal from the fire but brings up instead, at the tips of 
his fingers, the piece of platinum. In a secret breast 
pocket of his coat he has a small reservoir of hydrogen, 
with a tube coming down the sleeve and terminating an 
inch or so above the cuff. By means of certain mechani- 
cal arrangements, to enable him to let on and off the gas 
at the proper moment, he is able to accomplish the trick ; 
for when a current of hydrogen is allowed to impinge 
upon a piece of spongy platinum, the metal becomes in- 
candescent, and as soon as the current is arrested the 
platinum is restored to its normal condition. 

The hand may be protected from burning in vari- 
ous ways, one method being the repeated appli- 
cation of sulphuric acid to the skin, whereby it 
is rendered impervious to the action of fire for 
a short period of time ; another, by wearing 
gloves of amianthus or asbestos cloth. With the 
latter, worn in a badly lighted room, the medium, with- 
out much risk of discovery, can handle red hot coals or 
iron with impunity. The gloves may at the proper 
moment be slipped off and concealed about the person. 
A small slip of amianthus cloth placed on a newspaper 
would protect it from a hot coal and the same means 



108 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

could be used when a coal is placed in another's hand or 
upon his head. 

As to the marvelous "levitation", either the witnesses 
of the alleged feat were under some hypnotic spell, or 
else they allowed their imaginations to run riot when 
describing the event. In the case of Lord Lindsay and 
Lord A dare, D. Carpenter in his valuable paper "On Fal- 
lacies Respecting the Supernatural" (Contemporary Re- 
view, Jan., 1876) says: "A whole party of believers af- 
firm that they saw Mr. Home float out of one window 
and in at another, while a single honest skeptic declares 
that Mr. Home was sitting in his chair all the time." 
It seems that there were three gentlemen present besides 
the medium when the alleged phenomenon took place, 
the two noblemen and a "cousin". It is this unnamed 
hard-headed cousin to whom Dr. Carpenter refers as 
the "honest skeptic." 

Many of Home's admirers have declared that he pos- 
sessed the power of mesmerizing certain of his friends. 
These gentlemen were no doubt hypnotized and related 
honestly what they believed they had seen. Again, the 
expectancy of attention and the nervous tension of the 
average sitter in spirit-circles tend to produce a morbidly 
impressible condition of mind. Many mediums since 



D. D. HOME. 109 

Home's day have performed the act of levitation, but al- 
ways in a dark room. Mr. Angelo Lewis, the writer on 
magic, reveals an ingenious method by which levitation 
is effected. When the lights are extinguished the medi- 
um — who, by the way, must be a clever ventriloquist — 
removes his boots and places them on his hands. 

"I am rising, I am rising, but pay no attention", he 
remarks, as he goes about the apartment, where the 
sitters are grouped in a circle about him, and he lightly 
touches the heads of various persons. A shadowy form 
is dimly seen and a smell of boot leather becomes ap- 
parent to the olfactory senses of many present. People 
jump quickly to conclusions in such matters and argue 
that where the feet of the medium are, his body must 
surely be — namely, floating in the air. The illusion is 
further enhanced by the performers ventriloquial powers. 
"I am rising! I am touching the ceiling!" he exclaims, 
imitating the sound of a voice high up. When the lights 
are turned up, the medium is seen (this time with his 
boots on his feet) standing on tip-toe, as if just descended 
from the ceiling. 

Sometimes before performing the levitation act, he will 
say, "In order to convince any skeptic present, that I 
really float upwards, I will write the initials of my name, 



110 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

or the name of some one present, on the ceiling." When 
the lights are raised, the letters are seen written on the 
ceiling in a bold scrawling hand. How is it done? The 
medium has concealed about him a telescopic steel rod, 
something like those Chinese fishing rods at one time in 
vogue among modern disciples of Izaak Walton. This 
convenient rod when not in use folds up in a very small 
compass, but when it is shoved out to its full length, 
some three or four feet, with a bit of black chalk at- 
tached, the writing on the ceiling is easily produced. 
The magicians of ancient Egypt displayed their mystic 
rods as a part of their paraphernalia, while the modern 
magi bear theirs in secret. A tambourine, a guitar, a bell, 
or a spirit hand, rubbed with phosphorus, may also be 
fixed to this ingenious appliance, and floated over the 
heads of the spectators, and even a horn may be blown, 
through the hollow rod. 

The materialization of a spirit hand which crept from 
beneath a table-cover, and showed itself to the "be- 
lievers," was one of the most startling things in the rep- 
ertoire of D. D. Home, as it was in that of Dr. 
Monck's, an English medium. An explanation of 
Monck's method of producing the hand may, per- 
haps, throw some light on Home's "materializa- 



D. D. HOME. Ill 

tion." A small dummy hand, artistically ex- 
ecuted in wax, with the fingers slightly bent, is 
fastened to a broad elastic band about three feet in 
length. This band is attached to a belt about the per- 
former's waist and passes down his left trouser leg, al- 
lowing the hand to dangle within the trouser a few 
inches above the ankle. I must not forget to explain 
that to the wrist of the hand is appended an elastic sleeve 
about five inches long. The medium and two sitters 
take their seats at a square table, with an over-hanging 
table-cloth. No one is allowed to be seated at the same 
side of the table with the medium. This is an imperative 
condition. 

"Diminish the light, please," says the medium. Some 
one rises to lower the gas to the required dim religious 
light necessary to all spirit seances. "A little lower, 
please! Lower, lower still!" remarks the medium. Out 
the light goes. "Dear, me, but this is vexatious! Some- 
body light it again and be more careful!" he ejaculates. 
Under cover of the darkness the agile operator crosses 
his left foot over his right knee, pulls down the wax 
hand and fixes it to the toe of his boot by means of the 
elastic sleeve, the apparatus being masked from the sit- 
ters by the table cloth until the time comes for the spirit 



112 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

materialization. The three men place their hands on the 
table and wait patiently for developments. Presently a 
rap is heard under the table — disjointed knee of the med- 
ium, — and then mirabile dictu! the table-cloth shakes and 
a delicate female hand emerges and shows itself above 
the edge of the table. A guitar being placed close to the 
fingers, they soon strum the strings, or rather appear 
to do so, the medium being the dens ex machina. The 
cleverest part of the whole performance is the fact that 
the medium never takes his hands from the table. He 
quietly puts his left foot down on the floor and places his 
right foot heavily on the false hand — off it comes from 
the left foot and shoots up the trouser leg like lightning. 
The sitters may look under the table but they see 
nothing. 

An ingenious improvement has been made to this 
hand-test by an American conjurer, one that enables the 
medium to produce the hand although his feet are se- 
cured by the sitter. "Be kind enough, sir," says the per- 
former to the investigator, "to place your feet on mine. 
If I should move my feet ever so little, you would know 
it, would you not?" The sitter replies in the affirma- 
tive. The medium, as soon as he feels the pressure of 
the sitter's feet, withdraws his right foot from a steel 



D. D. HOME. 113 

shape made in imitation of the toe of his boot, and oper- 
ates the spirit hand at his leisure. After the sitting, he 
of course, inserts his right foot into the shape and carries 
it off with him. 

The production of spirit music was one of Home's 
favorite experiments. There are all sorts of ways of 
producing this music, the most ingenious of which I 
give: 

The apparatus consists of a small circular musical 
box, wound up by clock woik, and made to play when- 
ever pressure is put upon a stud projecting a quarter 
of an inch from its surface. This box is strapped 
around the right leg of the medium just above his 
knee, and hidden beneath the trouser leg. When not 
in use it is on the under side of the leg. On the table 
a musical box is placed and covered with a soup 
tureen, or the top of a chafing dish. When the spec- 
tators are seated, the medium works the concealed 
musical box around to the upper part of his leg near 
the knee cap, and by pressing the stud against the 
under surface of the table, starts the music playing. 
In this way the second musical box seems to> play and 
the acoustic effect is perfect. Perhaps Home used a 



114 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

similar contrivance; Dr. Monck did, and was caught 
in. the act by the chief of the Detective Police. 

Home during his seances on the Continent of Eu- 
rope was accused of all sorts of trickery. Some as- 
serted that he had concealed about him a small but 
powerful electric battery for producing certain il- 
lusions, mechanical contrivances attached to his legs 
for making spirit raps, and last but not least, as the 
medium states in his "Memoirs:" "they even accused me 
of carrying a small monkey about with me, concealed, 
trained to perform all sorts of ghostly tricks." 

People also accused him of obtaining a great deal 
of his information about the spirits of the departed 
from tombstones like an Old Mortality, and bribing 
family servants. A more probable explanation may be 
found perhaps in telepathy. 

There is one more phase of Home's mediumship, 
the moving of heavy pieces of furniture without phy- 
sical contact, that must be spoken of. In mentioning 
it, Dr. Max Dessoir, author of the "Psychology of 
Conjuring,"* says: "We must admit that a few 
feats, such as those of Prof. Crookes with Home, con- 
cerning the possibility of setting inanimate objects in 

♦Introduction to Herrmann the Magician, his Life, his Secrets, 

(Laird & I,ee, Publishers.) 



CROOKES EXPERIMENTS. I15 

motion without touching them, appear to lie entirely 
outside the sphere of jugglery." In the year 1871, 
Prof. William Crookes, (now Sir William Crookes) 
Fellow of the Royal Society, a very eminent 
scientist, subjected Home to some elaborate tests 
in order to prove or disprove by means of 
scientific apparatus the reality of phenomena con- 
nected with variations in the weight of bodies, with or 
without contact. He declared the tests to be entirely 
satisfactory, but ascribed the phenomena not to spirit- 
ual agency, but to a new force, "in some unknown 
manner connected with the human organization," 
which for convenience he called the "Psychic Force." 
He said in his "Reseaches in the Phenomena of Spirit- 
ualism:" "Of all the persons endowed with a powerful 
development of this Psychic Force, and who have 
been termed 'mediums' upon quite another theory of its 
origin, Mr. Daniel Dunglas Home is the most re- 
markable, and it is mainly owing to the many oppor- 
tunities I have had of carrying on my investigations 
in his presence that I am enabled to affirm so con- 
clusively the existence of this force." Prof. Crookes' 
experiments were conducted, as he says, in the full 
light, and in the presence of witnesses, among them 



Il6 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

being the famous English barrister, Sergeant Cox, 
and the astronomer, Dr. Huggins. Heavy articles 
became light and light articles heavy when the me- 
dium came near them. In some cases he lightly 
touched them, in others refrained from contact. 

The first piece of the apparatus constructed by 




FIG. 8. CROOKES' APPARATUS. 

Crookes to test this psychic force consisted of a ma- 
hogany board 36 inches long by 9^ inches wide and 1 
inch thick. A strip of mahogany was screwed on at 
one end, to* form a foot, the length being equal to the 
width of the board. This end of the board was placed 
on a table, while the other end was upheld by a spring 



CROOKES EXPERIMENTS. 117 

balance, fastened to a strong tripod stand, as will be 
seen in Fig. 8. 

"Mr. Home," writes Prof. Crookes, "placed the tips 
of his fingers lightly on the extreme end of the ma- 
hogany board which was resting on the support, 
whilst Dr. A. B. [Dr. Huggins] and myself sat, one 
on each side of it, watching for any effect which 
might be produced. Almost immediately the pointer 
of the balance was seen to descend. After a few sec- 
onds it rose again. This movement was repeated 
several times, as if by successive waves of the psychic 
force. The end of the board was observed to oscil- 
late slowly up and down during the experiment. 

"Mr. Home now, of his own accord, took a small 
hand-bell and a little card match-box, which hap- 
pened to be near, and placed one under each hand, to 
satisfy us, as he said, that he was not producing the 
downward pressure. The very slow oscillation of the 
spring balance became more marked, and Dr. A. B., 
watching the index, said that he saw it descend to 6^ 
lbs. The normal weight of the board as so sus- 
pended being 3 lbs., the additional downward pull was 
therefore 3^ lbs. On looking immediately afterwards 
at the automatic register, we saw "that the index 



Il8 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

had at one time descended as low as 9 lbs., showing a 
maximum pull of 6 lbs. upon a board whose normal 
weight was 3 lbs. 

"In order to see whether it was possible to produce 
much effect on the spring balance by pressure at the 
place where Mr. Home's fingers had been, I stepped 
upon the table and stood on one foot at the end of the 
board. Dr. A. B., who was observing the index of 
the balance, said that the whole weight of my body 
(140 lbs.) so applied only sunk the index 1| lbs., or 2 
lbs. when I jerked up and down. Mr. Home had been 
sitting in a low easy-chair, and could not, therefore, 
had he tried his utmost, have exerted any material in- 
fluence on these results. I need scarcely add that his 
feet as well as his hands were closely guarded by all 
in the room." 

The next series of experiments is thus described: 
"On trying these experiments for the first time, I 
thought that actual contact between Mr. Home's 
hands and the suspended body whose weight was to 
be altered was essential to the exhibition of the force; 
but I found afterwards that this was not a necessary 
condition, and I therefore arranged my apparatus in 
the following- manner: — 



CROOKES EXPERIMENTS. H^ 

'The accompanying cuts (Figs. 9, 10 and 11) explain 
the arrangement. Fig. 9 is a general view, and Figs. 
10 and 11 show the essential parts more in detail. The 
reference letters are the same in each illustration. A 
B is a mahogany board, 36 inches long by 9| inches 
wide, and 1 inch thick. It is suspended at the end, 
B, by a spring balance, C, furnished with an automatic 




FIG. 9. CROOKES' APPARATU9. 

register, D. The balance is suspended from a very 
firm tripod support, E. 

"The following piece of apparatus is not shown in 
the figures. To the moving index, O, of the spring 
balance, a fine steel point is soldered, projecting hori- 
zontally outwards. In front of the balance, and 
firmly fastened to it, is a grooved frame, carry- 



PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 




FIG. 10. CROOKES' APPARATUS. 

ing a flat box similar to the dark box of a photo- 
graphic camera. This box is made to travel by 
clock-work horizontally in front of the moving index, 
and it contains a sheet of plate-glass which has been 
smoked over a flame. The projecting steel point im- 
presses a mark on this smoked surface. If the bal- 
ance is at rest, and the clock set going, the result is a 
perfectly straight horizontal line. If the clock is 
stopped and weights are placed on the end, B, of 
the board, the result is a vertical line, whose length 
depends on the weight applied. If, whilst the clock 
draws the plate along, the weight of the board (or the 
tension on the balance) varies, the result is a curved 



CROOKES EXPERIMENTS. 121 

Tine, from which the tension in grains at any moment 
during the continuance of the experiments can be 
calculated. 

"The instrument was capable of registering a di- 
minution of the force of gravitation as well as an in- 
crease; registrations of such a diminution were fre- 
quently obtained. To avoid complication, however, 
I will here refer only to results in which an increase of 
gravitation was' experienced. 







FIG. II. CROOKES' APPARATUS. 



"The end, B, of the board being supported by the 
spring balance, the end, A, is supported on a wooden 



122 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

strip, F, screwed across its lower side and cut to a 
knife edge (see Fig. 11). This fulcrum rests on a firmand 
heavy wooden stand, G H. On the board, exactly over 
the fulcrum, is placed a large glass vessel filled with 
water. I L is a massive iron stand, furnished with 
an arm and a ring, M N, in which rests a hemispheri- 
cal copper vessel perforated with several holes at the 
bottom. 

"The iron stand is 2 inches from the board, A B, 
and the arm and copper vessel, M N, are so adjusted 
that the latter dips into the water 1| inches, being 5^ 
inches from the bottom of I, and 2 inches from its cir- 
cumference. Shaking or striking the arm, M, or the 
vessel, N, produces no appreciable mechanical effect 
on the board, A B, capable of affecting the balance. 
Dipping the hand to the fullest extent into the water 
in N does not produce the least appreciable action on 
the balance. 

"As the mechanical transmission of power is by this 
means entirely cut off between the copper vessel and 
the board, A B, the power of muscular control is 
thereby completely eliminated. 

"For convenience I will divide the experiments into 
groups, 1, 2, 3, etc., and I have selected one special 



CROOKES' EXPERIMENTS. 123 

instance in each to describe in detail. Nothing, how- 
ever, is mentioned which has not been repeated more 
than once, and in some cases verified, in Mr. Home's 
absence, with another person, possessing similar pow- 
ers. 

"There was always ample light in the room where 
the experiments were conducted (my own dining- 
room) to see all that took place. 

"Experiment I. — The apparatus having been prop- 
erly adjusted before Mr. Home entered the room, he 
was brought in, and asked to place his fingers in the 
water in the copper vessel, N. He stood up and 
dipped the tips of the ringers of his right hand in the 
water, his other hand and his feet being held. When 
he said he felt a power, force, or influence, proceeding 
from his hand, I set the clock going, and almost im- 
mediately the end, B, of the board was seen to descend 
slowly and remain down for about 10 seconds; it then 
descended a little further, and afterwards rose to its 
normal height. It then descended again, rose sud- 
denly, gradually sunk for 17 seconds, and finally rose 
to its normal height, where it remained till the ex- 
periment was concluded. The lowest point marked 
on the glass was equivalent to a direct pull of about 



124 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

5,000 grains. The accompanying Figure 12 is a copy 
of the curve traced on the glass. 

"Experiment II. — Contact through water having 
proved to be as effectual as actual mechanical con- 
tact, I wished to see if the power or force could affect 
the weight, either through other portions of the ap- 
paratus or through the air. The glass vessel and iron 
stand, etc., were therefore removed, as an unnecessary 
complication, and Mr. Home's hands were placed on the 

SCALE OF 9ECONDS. 




stand of the apparatus at P (Fig. 9). A gentleman present 
put his hand on Mr. Home's hands, and his foot on 
both Mr. Home's feet, and I also watched him 
closely all the time. At the proper moment the clock 
was again set going; the board descended and rose in 
an irregular manner, the result being a curved tracing 
on the glass, of which Fig. 13 is a copy. 



CROOKES EXPERIMENTS. 

SCALE THB SAME AS IN FIG. 12. 



125 




"Experiment III. — Mr. Home was now placed one 
foot from the board, A B, on one side of it. His 
hands and feet were firmly grasped by a by-stander, 
and another tracing, of which Fig. 14 is a copy, was 
taken on the moving glass plate. 

SCALE THE SAME A9 IN FIG. 12. 



F^ 



Y^ 



"Experiment IV. — (Tried on an occasion when the 
power was stronger than on the previous occasions), 
Mr. Home was now placed 3 feet from the appara- 
tus, his hands and feet being tightly held. The clock 
was set going when he gave the word, and the end, B, 

9CALE THE SAME AS IN FIG. 12. 




FIG. 15. DIAGRAM SHOWING TENSION IN BROOKES' APPARATUS UNDER 
HOME'S INFLUENCE. 



126 



PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 



of the board soon descended, and again rose in an ir- 
regular manner, as shown in Fig. 15. 

"The following series of experiments were tried 
with more delicate apparatus, and with another per- 
son, a lady, Mr. Home being absent. As the lady is 
non-professional, I do not mention her name. She 
has, however, consented to meet any scientific men 
whom I may introduce for purposes of investigation. 

"A piece of thin parchment, A, (Figs. 16 and 17), is 
stretched tightly across a circular hoop of wood. B 
C is a light lever turning on D. At the end B is a 
vertical needle point touching the membrane A, and 
at C is another needle point, projecting horizontally 




FIG. l6. SECOND CROOKES' APPARATUS. 

and touching a smoked glass plate, E F. This 
glass plate is drawn along in the direction H G 
by clockwork, K. The end, B, of the lever is weighted 
so that it shall quickly follow the movements of the 



CROOKES EXPERIMENTS. 127 

centre of the disc, A. These movements are trans- 
mitted and recorded on the glass plate, E F, by means 
of the lever and needle point, C. Holes are cut in 
the side of the hoop to allow a free passage of air to 
the under side of the membrane. The apparatus was 
well tested beforehand by myself and others, to see 
that no shaking or jar on the table or support would 
interfere with the results: the line traced by the point, C, 




PIG. 17. SECTION OF APPARATUS IN FIG. l6. 

on the smoked glass was perfectly straight in spite of 
all our attempts to influence the lever by shaking the 
stand or stamping on the floor. 

"Experiment V. — Without having the object of the 
instrument explained to her, the lady was brought 
into the room and asked to place her fingers on the 
wooden stand at the points, L M, Fig. 16. I then 
placed my hands over hers to enable me to detect any 



128 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

conscious or unconscious movement on her part. 
Presently percussive noises were heard on the parch- 
ment, resembling the dropping of grains of sand on 
its surface. At each percussion a fragment of graph- 
ite which I had placed on the membrane was seen to 
be projected upwards about i-5oth of v.n inch, and 
the end, C, of the lever moved slightly up and down. 
Sometimes the sounds were as rapid as those from 
an induction-coil, whilst at others they were more 
than a second apart. Five or six tracings were taken, 
and in all cases a movement of the end, C, of the lever 
was seen to have occurred with each vibration of the 
membrane. 

"In some cases the lady's hands were not so near 
the membrane as L M, but were at N O, Fig 17. 



r 




FIG. 18. DIAGRAM SHOWING TENSION IN CROOKES' APPARATUS (FIG. 
15 AND 16) OUTSIDE HOME'S INFLUENCE. 

"The accompanying Fig. 18 gives tracings taken 
from the plates used on these occasions. 



CROOKES EXPERIMENTS. I 2 g 

"Experiment VI. — Having met with these results in 
Mr. Home's absence, I was anxious to see what ac- 
tion would be produced on the instrument in his pres- 
ence. 

"Accordingly I asked him to try, but without ex- 
plaining the instrument to him. 

"I grasped Air. Home's right arm above the wrist 
and held his hand over the membrane, about 10 
inches from its surface, in the position shown at P, 
Fig. 17. His other hand was held by a friend. After 
remaining in this position for about half a minute, 
Mr. Home said he felt some influence passing. I 
then set the clock going, and we all saw the index, C, 
moving up and down. The movements were much 
slower than in the former case, and were almost en- 
tirely unaccompanied by the percussive vibrations 
then noticed. 

"Figs. 19 and 20 show the curves produced on the 
glass on two of these occasions. 

"Figs. 18, 19 and 20 are magnified. 

"These experiments confirm beyond doubt the con- 
clusions at which I arrived in my former paper, name- 
ly, the existence of a force associated, in some manner 
not yet explained, with the human organization, by 



130 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

which force increased weight is capable of being im- 
parted to solid bodies without physical contact. In 
the case of Mr. Home, the development of this force 

SCALE THE SAME AS IN FIG 




FIG. 19. DIAGRAM SHOWING TENSION IN CROOKES' APPARATUS (FIG. 16 
AND 17) UNDER HOME'S INFLUENCE. 

varies enormously, not only from week to week, but 
from hour to' hour; on some occasions the force is in- 
appreciable by my tests for an hour or more, and then 
suddenly reappears in great strength. 

"It is capable of acting at a distance from Mr. 

SCALE THE SAME AS ON FIG. l8. 




FIG. 20. DIAGRAM SHOWING TENSION IN CROOKES' APPARATUS (FIG. l6 
AND 17) UNDER HOME'S INFLUENCE. 

Home (not unfrequently as far as two or three feet), 
but is always strongest close to him. 

"Being firmly convinced that there could be no 
manifestation of one form of force without the corre- 



CROOKES' EXPERIMENTS. 131 

sponding expenditure of some other form of force, I 
for a long time searched in vain for evidence of any 
force or power being used up in the production of 
these results. 

"Now, however, having seen more of Mr. Home, I 
think I perceive what it is that this psychic force uses 
up for its development. In employing the terms vital 
force or nervous energy, I am aware that I am em- 
ploying words which convey very different significa- 
tions to many investigators; but after witnessing the 
painful state of nervous and bodily prostration in 
which some of these experiments have left Mr. Home 
— after seeing him lying in an almost fainting condi- 
tion on the floor, pale and speechless — I could scarce- 
ly doubt that the evolution of psychic force is accom- 
panied by a corresponding drain on vital force." 

Sergeant Cox in speaking of the tests says, "The 
results appear to me conclusively to establish the im- 
portant fact, that there is a force proceeding from the 
nerve-system capable of imparting motion and weight 
to solid bodies within the sphere of its influence." 

One of the medium's defenders has written: 

"Home's mysterious power, whatever it may have 
been, was very uncertain. Sometimes he could ex- 



132 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

ercise it, and at others not, and these fluctuations 
were not seldom the source of embarrassment to him. 
He would often arrive at a place in obedience to an 
engagement, and, as he imagined, ready to perform, 
when he would discover himself absolutely helpless. 
After a seance his exhaustion appeared to be com- 
plete. 

"There is no more striking proof of the fact that 
Home really possessed occult gifts of some sort — 
psychic force or whatever else the power may be 
termed — than he gave such amazing exhibitions in 
the early part of his history and was able to do> so 
little toward the end. If it had been juggling he 
would, like other conjurors, have improved on his 
tricks by experience, or at all events, while his mem- 
ory held out he would not have deteriorated." 

Dr. Hammond's Experiments. 

Dr. William A. Hammond, the eminent neurolo- 
gist, of Washington, D. C, took up the cudgels 
against Prof. Crookes' "Psychic Force" theory, and 
assigned the experiments to' the domain of animal 
electricity. He wrote as follows:* "Place an egg in 
an egg-cup and balance a long lath upon the egg. 

♦Spiritualism and nervous derangement, New York, 1876. p. 115. 



HAMMOND S EXPERIMENTS. 



133 



Though the lath be almost a plank it will obediently 
follow a rod of glass, gutta percha or sealing-wax, 
which has been previously well dried and rubbed, the 
former with a piece of silk, and the two latter with 
woolen cloth. Now, in dry weather, many persons 
within my knowledge, have only to walk with a shuf- 




FIG. 21. DR. HAMMOND'S APPARATUS. 

fling gait over the carpet, and then approaching the 
lath hold out the finger instead of the glass, sealing 
wax or gutta percha, and instantly the end of the lath 
at L rises to meet it, and the end at Lis depressed. 
Applying these principles, I arranged an apparatus 
exactly like that of Prof. Crookes, except that the 
spring balance was such as is used for weighing let- 
ters and was therefore very delicate, indicating quar- 
ter ounces with exactness, and that the board was 
thin and narrow. 



134 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

"Applying the glass rod or stick of sealing-wax to 
the end resting by its foot on the table, the index of 
the balance at once descended, showing an increased 
weight of a little over three quarters of an ounce, and 
this without the board being raised from the table. 

"I then walked over a thick Turkey rug for a few 
moments, and holding my finger under the board 
near the end attached to the balance, caused a fall of 
the index of almost half an ounce. I then rested my 
finger lightly on the end of the board immediately 
over the foot, and again the index descended and os- 
cillated several times, just as in Mr. Home's experi- 
ments. The lowest point reached was six and a quar- 
ter ounces, and as the board weighed, as attached to 
the balance, five ounces, there was an increased 
weight of one and a quarter ounces. At no time was 
the end of the board raised from the table. 

"I then arranged the apparatus so as to place a thin 
glass tumbler nearly full of water immediately over 
the fulcrum, as in Mr. Crookes' experiment, and again 
the index fell and oscillated on my fingers being put into 
the water. 

"Now if one person can thus, with a delicate ap- 
paratus like mine, cause the index, through electri- 



ROPE-TYING. 



135 



city, to descend and ascend, it is not improbable that 
others, like Mr. Home, could show greater, or even 
different electrical power, as in Prof. Crookes' experi- 
ments. It is well known that all persons are not alike 
in their ability to be electrically excited. Many per- 
sons, myself among them, can light the gas with the 
end of the finger. Others cannot do it with any 
amount of shuffling over the carpet. 

"At any rate is it not much more sensible to believe 
that Mr. Home's experiments are to be thus ex- 
plained than to attribute the results of his semi-mys- 
terious attempts to spiritualism or psychic force?" 
3. Rope-Tying and Holding Mediums. 

THE DAVENPORT BROTHERS. 

Ira Erastus and William Henry Davenport were 
born at Buffalo, N. Y„ the former on Sept. 17, 1839, 
and the latter on February 1, 1841. Their father, Ira 
Davenport, was in the police detective department, 
and, it is alleged, invented the celebrated rope-tying 
feats after having seen the Indian jugglers of the 
West perform similar illusions. The usual stories 
about ghostly phenomena attending the childhood of 
mediums were told about the Davenport Brothers, 
but it was not until 1855 that they started on their tour 



136 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

of the United States, with their father as showman or 
spiritual lecturer. When the Civil War broke out, 
the Brothers, accompanied by Dr. J. B. Ferguson, 
formerly an Independent minister of Nashville, Tenn., 
in the capacity of lecturer, and a Mr. Palmer as gen- 
eral agent and manager, went to< England to exhibit 
their mediumistic powers, following the example of 
D. D. Home. With the company also was a Buffalo 
boy named Fay, of German-American parentage, who 
had formerly acted as ticket-taker for the mediums. 
He discovered the secret of the rope-tying feat, and 
was an adept at the coat feat, so he was employed as 
an "under-study" in case of the illness of William 
Davenport, who was in rather delicate health. The 
Brothers Davenport at this period, aged respectively 
25 and 23 years, had "long black curly hair, broad but 
not high foreheads, dark eyes, heavy eye-brows and 
moustaches, firm set lips, and a bright, keen look." 
Their first performance in England was given at the 
Concert Rooms, Hanover Square, London, and 
created intense excitement. 

Punch called the furore over the spirit rope-tyers 
the "tie-fuss fever," and said the mediums were 
"Ministers of the Interior, with a seat in the Cabinet." 



ROPE-TYING. 



137 



J. N. Maskelyne, the London conjurer of Egyptian 
Hall, wrote of them: "About the Davenport Broth- 
ers' performances, I have to say that they were and 
still remain the most inexplicable ever presented to 
the public as of spiritual origin; and had they been 
put forth as feats of jugglery would have awakened 
a considerable amount of curiosity though certainly 
not to the extent they did." 

In September, 1865, the Brothers arrived in Paris, 
and placarded the city with enormous posters an- 
nouncing that the Brothers Davenport, spirit-me- 
diums, would give a series of public seances at the 
Salle Hers. Their reputation had preceded them to 
France and the boulevardiers talked of nothing but the 
wonderful American mediums and their mysterious 
cabinet. Before exhibiting in Paris the Davenports 
visited the Chateau de Gennevilliers, whose owner was 
an enthusiastic believer in Spiritism, and gave a 
stance before a select party of journalists and scien- 
tific men. The exhibition was pronounced marvel- 
lous in the extreme and perfectly inexplicable. 

The Parisian press was divided on the subject of 
the Davenports and their advertised seances. Some 
of the papers protested against such performances en 



138 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

the ground that they were dangerous to the mental 
health of the public, and, one writer said, "Particularly 
to those weaker intellects which are always ready 
enough to accept as gospel the tricks and artifices of 
the adepts of sham witchcraft." M. Edmond About, 
the famous journalist and novelist, in the Opinion Na- 
tionale, wrote a scathing denunciation of Spiritism, but 
all to no purpose, except to inflame public curiosity. 
The performances of the Davenports were divided 
into two parts: (1) The light seance, (2) the dark 
seance. In the light seance a cabinet, elevated from 
the stage by three trestles, was used. It was a simple 
wooden structure with three doors. In the centre 
door was a lozenge-shaped window covered with a 
curtain. Upon the sides of the cabinet hung various 
musical instruments, a guitar, a violin, horns, tam- 
bourines, and a big dinner bell. 

A committee chosen by the audience tied the me- 
diums' hands securely behind their backs, fastened 
their legs together, and pinioned them to their seats 
in the cabinet, and to the cross rails with strong 
ropes. The side doors were closed first, then the 
center door, but no' sooner was the last fastened, than 
the hands of one of the mediums were thrust through 



ROPE-TYING. 139 




FIG. 22. THE BAVENPORT BROTHERS IN THEIR CABINET. 



I 4 o PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

the window in the centre door. In a very short time, at 
a signal from the mediums, the doors were opened,and 
the Davenports stepped forth, with the ropes in their 
hands, every knot untied, confessedly by spirit power. 
The astonishment of the spectators amounted to awe. 
On an average it took ten minutes to pinion the 
Brothers; bt;t a single minute was required for their 
release. Once more the mediums went into the cabi- 
net, this time with the ropes lying in a coil at their 
feet. Two minutes elapsed. Hey, presto! the doors 
were opened, and the Davenports were pronounced 
by the committee to be securely lashed to their seats. 
Seals were affixed to the knots in the ropes, and the 
doors closed as before. Pandemonium reigned. 
Bells were rung, horns blown, tambourines thumped, 
violins played, and guitars vigorously twanged. 
Heavy rappings also were heard on the ceiling, sides 
and floor of the cabinet, then after a brief but absolute 
silence, a bare hand and arm emerged from the 
lozenge window, and rung the big dinner bell. On 
opening the doors the Brothers were found securely 
tied as before, and seals intact. An amusing feature 
of the exhibition occurred when a venturesome spec- 
tator volunteered to sit inside of t'ne cabinet between 






ROPE-TYING. I 4 I 

the two mediums. He came out with his coat turned 
inside out and his hat jammed over his eyes. In the 
dark stance the cabinet was dispensed with and the 
spectators, holding hands, formed a ring around the 
mediums. The lights were put out and similar 
phenomena took place, with the addition of luminous 
hands, and musical instruments floating in the air. 

Robert-Houdin wrote an interesting brochure on 
the Davenports, ("Secrets of Stage Conjuring," translated 
by Prof. Hoffmann) from which I take the following: 
"The ropes used by the Davenport Brothers are of a 
cotton fibre; and they present therefore smooth sur- 
faces, adapted to slip easily one upon another. Gen- 
tlemen are summoned from the audience to tie the 
mediums. Now, tell me, is it an easy task for an am- 
ateur to tie a man up off-hand with a rope three yards 
long, in a very secure way? The amateur is flurried, 
self-conscious, anxious to acquit himself well of the 
business, but he is a gentleman, not a brute, and if 
one of the Brothers sees the ropes getting into a dan- 
gerous tangle, he gives a slight groan, as if he were 
being injured, and the instantaneous impulse of the 
other man is to loosen the cord a trifle. A fraction of 
an inch is an invaluable gain in the after-business of 



142 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

loosening the ropes. Sometimes the stiffening of a 
muscle, the raising of a shoulder, the crooking of a 
knee, gives all the play required by the Brothers in 
ridding themselves of their bonds. Their muscles 
and joints are wonderfully supple, too; the thumbs 
can be laid flat in the palm of the hand, the hand it- 
self rounded until it is no broader than the wrist, and 
then it is easy to pull through. Violent wrenches 
send the ropes up toward the shoulder, vigorous shak- 
ings get the legs free; the first hand untied is thrust 
through the hole in the door of the cabinet, and then 
returns to give aid to more serious knots on his own 
or his brother's person. In tying themselves up the 
Davenports used the slip-knot, a sort of bow, the ends 
of which have only to be pulled to be tightened or 
loosened." 

This slip-knot is a very ingenious affair. (See Fig. 
33.) In performing the spirit-tying, the mediums 
went into the cabinet with the ropes examined by the 
audience lying coiled at their feet. The doors were 
closed. They had concealed about their persons 
ropes in which these trick knots were already ad-' 
justed, and with which they very speedily secured 
themselves, having first secreted the genuine ropes. 



ROPE-TYING. I43 

Then the doors were opened. Seals were affixed to 
the knots, but this sealing, owing to the position of 
the hands, and the careful exposition of the 
knots did not affect the slipping of the ropes suf- 
ficiently to prevent the mediums from removing and 
replacing their hands. 




HO. 23. TRICK-TIE USED IN CABINET WORK, 

In the dark seance, flour was sometimes placed in 
the pinioned hands of the Davenports. On being re- 
leased from their bonds, the flour was found undis- 
turbed. 

This was considered a convincing test; for how 
could the Brothers possibly manipulate the musical 
instruments with their hands full of flour. One day a 
wag substituted a handful of snuff for flour, and when 
the mediums were examined, the snuff had disap- 
peared and flour taken its place. As will be under- 



144 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

stood, in the above test the Davenports emptied the 
flour from their hands into secret pockets and at the 
proper moment took out cornucopias of flour and 
filled their hands again before securing themselves 
in the famous slip-knots. 

Among the exposes of the Brothers Davenport, 
Herrmann, the conjurer, gives the following in 
the Cosmopolitan Magazine: 'The Davenports, for 
thirteen years, in Europe and America, augmented 
the faith in Spiritualism. Unfortunately for the Dav- 
enports they appeared at Ithaca, New York, where is 
situated Cornell University. The students having a 
scientific trend of mind, provided themselves before 
attending the performance with pyiotechnic balls con- 
taining phosphorus, so made as to ignite suddenly with 
a bright light. During the dark seance when the Dav- 
enports were supposed to be bound hand and foot within 
the closet and when the guitars were apparently floating 
in the air, the students struck their lights, whereupon 
the spirits were found to be no other than the Daven- 
ports themselves, dodging about the stage brandish- 
ing guitars and playing tunes and waving at the same 
time tall poles surmounted by phosphorescent spook 
pictures." 



ROPE-TYING. I45 

The Davenports had some stormy experiences in 
Paris, but managed to come through all successfully, 
with plenty of French gold in their pockets. William 
died in October, 1877, at the Oxford Hotel, Sydney, 
Australia, having publicly denounced Spiritualism. 
Mr. Fay took to raising sheep in Australia, while Ira 
Davenport drifted back to his old home in Buffalo, 
New York. 

Many mediums, taking the cue from the Daven- 
ports, have performed the cabinet act with its accom- 
panying rope-tying, but the conjurers (anti-spiritists) 
have, with the aid of mechanism, brought the busi- 
ness to a high degree of perfection, notably Mr. J. 
Nevil Maskelyne, of Egyptian Hall, London, and 
Mr. Harry Kellar, of the United States. Writing of 
the Davenport Brothers, Maskelyne says : 

"The instantaneous tying and untying was simply 
marvellous, and it utterly baffled everyone to dis- 
cover, until, on one occasion, the accidental falling of 
a piece of drapery from a window (the lozenge-shaped 
aperture in the door of the cabinet), at a critical mo- 
ment let me into the secret. I was able in a few 
months to reproduce every item of the Davenports' 
cabinet and dark seance. So close was the resem- 



146 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

blance to the original, that the Spiritualist had no alter- 
native but to claim us (Maskelyne and Cooke) as 
most powerful spirit mediums who found it more pro- 
fitable to deny the assistance of spirits ." 

Robert-Houdin's explanation of the slip-knot, used 
by the Davenports in their dark seance, is the correct 
one, but he failed to fathom the mystery of the mode 
of release of the Brothers after they were tied in the 
cabinet by a committee selected from the audience. 
Anyone trying to extricate himself from bondage a 
la Houdin, no matter how slippery and serpentine he 
be, would find it exceedingly difficult. It seems al- 
most incredible, but trickery was used in the light 
seance, as well as the dark. Maskelyne, as quoted 
above, claimed to have penetrated the mystery, but 
he kept it a profound secret — though he declared that 
his cabinet work was trickery. The writer is in- 
debted for an initiation into the mysteries of the Dav- 
enport Brothers' rope-tying to Mr. H. Morgan Rob- 
inson (Professor Helmann), of Washington, D. C, a 
very clever prestidigitateur. 

In the year 1895, after an unbroken silence of nine- 
teen years, Fay, ex-assistant of the Davenports, de- 
termined to resume the profession of public medium. 



ROPE-TYING. I 47 

He abandoned his sheep ranch and hunted up Ira 
Davenport. They gave several performances in 
Northern towns, and finally landed at the Capital of 
the Nation, in the spring of 1895, and advertised sev- 
eral seances at Willard's Hall. A very small audi- 
ence greeted them on their first appearance. Among 
the committee volunteering to go on the stage and 
tie the mediums were the writer and Mr. Robinson. 
After the seance the prestidigitateur fully explained the 
modus operandi of the mystic tie, which is herein for 
the first time correctly given to the public. 

The medium holds out his left wrist first and has 
it tied securely, about the middle of the rope. Two 
members of the committee are directed to pull the 
ends of the cord vigorously. "Are you confident that 
the knots are securely tied?" he asks; when the com- 
mittee respond "yes," he puts his hand quickly behind 
him, and places against the wrist, the wrist of his 
right hand, in order that they may be pinioned to- 
gether. During this rapid movement he twists the 
rope about the knot on his left wrist, thereby allowing 
enough slack cord to disengage his right hand when 
necessary. To slip the right hand back into place is 
an easy matter. After both hands are presumably 



148 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

tied, the medium steps into the cabinet; the 
ends of the rope are pushed through two holes in 
the chair or wooden seat, by the committee and made 
fast to the medium's legs. Bells ring, horns blow, 
and the performer's hand is thrust through the win- 
dow of the cabinet. Finally a gentleman is requested 
to enter the cabinet with the medium. The doors are 
locked and a perfect pandemonium begins; when they 
are opened the volunteer assistant tumbles out in 
great trepidation. His hat is smashed over his eyes, 
his cravat is tied around his leg, and he is found to 
have on the medium's coat, while the medium wears 
the gentleman's coat turned inside out. It all ap- 
pears very remarkable, but the mystery is cleared up 
when I state that the innocent looking gentleman is 
invariably a confederate, what conjurers call a plant, 
because he is planted in the audience to volunteer for 
the special act. 

Ira and William Davenport were tied in the man- 
ner above described. Often one of the Brothers al- 
lowed himself to be genuinely pinioned, after having 
received a preconcerted signal from his partner that 
all was right, i. e., the partner had been fastened by 
the trick tie, calling attention to the knots in the cord, 



ROPE-TYING. 



149 



etc. The trick tie, however, is so delusive, that it is 
impossible to penetrate the secret in the short time 
allowed the committee for investigation, and there is 
no special reason for permitting a genuine tie-up. 
Once in a great while, the Davenports were over- 
reached by clever committee-men and tied up so 
tightly that there was no getting loose. Where one 
brother failed to execute the trick and was genuinely 
fastened, the other medium performed the spirit evo- 
lutions, and cut his "confrere" loose before they came 
out of the cabinet. 

The Fay-Davenport revival proved a failure, and 
the mediums dissolved partnership in Washington. 
Kellar, the magician and former assistant of the orig- 
inal Davenport combination, by a curious coincidence 
was giving his fine conjuring exhibition in the city at 
the same time. His tricks far eclipsed the feeble re- 
vival of the rope-tying phenomena. The fickle 
public crowded to see the magician and neglected the 
mediums. 

ANNIE EVA FAY. 

One of the most famous of the materializing me- 
diums now exhibiting in the United States is Annie 



150 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

Eva Fay. She is quite an adept at the spirit-tying 
business, and like the Davenports, uses a cabinet on 
the stage, but her method of tying, though clever, is 
inferior to that used by the Brothers in their balmy 
days. In the center of the Fay cabinet («a plain, cur- 
tained affair) is a post firmly screwed to the stage. 
The medium permits a committee of two from the 
audience to tie her to this post, and seal the bandages 
about her wrists with court plaster. She then takes 
her seat upon a small stool in front of the stanchion; 
the musical instruments are placed on her lap, and the 
curtains of the cabinet closed. Immediately the evi- 
dences of spirit power begin: the bell is jingled, the 
tambourine thumped, and the sound of a horn heard, 
simultaneously. 

The Fay method of tying is designed especially to 
facilitate the medium's actions. Cotton bandages are 
used, and the committee are invited to sew the knots 
through and through. Each wrist is tied with a 
bandage, about an inch and a half wide by a half yard 
in length; and the medium then clasps her hands be- 
hind her, so that her wrists are about six inches apart. 
The committee now proceed to tie the ends of the 
bandages firmly together, and, after this is accom- 



ROPE-TYING. I 5 I 

plished, the dangling pieces of the bandages are 
clipped off. It is true, the medium is firmly bound 
by this process, and it would be physically impossible 
for her to release herself, without disturbing the sew- 
ing and the seals, but it is not intended for her to re- 
lease herself at all; the method pursued being alto- 
gether different from the old species of rope-tying. 
All being secure, the committee are requested to pass 
another bandage about the short ligature between the 
lady's wrists, and tie it in double square knots, and 
firmly secure this to a ring in the post of the cabinet, 
the medium being seated on a stool in front of the 
stanchion, facing the audience. Her neck is like- 
wise secured to the post by cotton bandages and her 
feet fastened together with a cord, the end of which 
passes out of the cabinet and is held by one of the 
committee. 

The peculiar manner of holding the hands, de- 
scribed above, enables the medium to secure for her 
use, a ligature of knotted cloth between her hands, 
some six inches long; and the central bandage, usu- 
ally tied in four or five double knots, gives her about 
two inches play between the middle of the cotton 
handcuffs and the ring in the post, to which it is se- 



152 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

cured. The ring is two and a half inches in diam- 
eter, and the staple which holds it to the stanchion is 
a half inch. The left hand of the medium gives six 
additional inches, and the bandage on her wrist slips 
readily along her slender arm nearly half way to the 
elbow — "all of which," says John W. Truesdell* who 
was the first to expose Miss Fay's spirit pretensions, 
"gives the spirits a clear leeway of not less than 20 
inches from the stanchion. The moment the curtain 
is closed, the medium, under spirit influence spreads 
her hands as far apart as possible, an act which 
stretches the knotted ligature so that the bandage 
about it will easily slip from the centre to either wrist ; 
then, throwing her lithe form by a quick movement, 
to the left, so' that her hips will pass the stanchion 
without moving her feet from the floor, the spirits are 
able, through the medium, to reach whatever may 
have been placed upon her lap." 

One of Annie Eva's most convincing tests is the 
accordion which plays, after it has been bound fast 
with tapes and the tapes carefully sealed at every 
note, so as to prevent its being performed on in the 
regular manner. Her method of operating, though 

"The Bottom Facts Concerning the Science of Spiritualism, etc., New 
York, 1883. 



ROPE-TYING. I53 

simple, is decidedly ingenious. She places a small 
tube in the valve-hole of the instrument, breathes and 
blows alternately into it, and then by fingering the 
keys, executes an air with excellent effect. 

Sometimes she places a musical box on an oblong 
plate of glass suspended from the ceiling by four 
cords. The box plays and stops at word of com- 
mand, much to the astonishment of listeners. "Elec- 
tricity," exclaims the reader! Hardly so, for the box 
is completely insulated on the sheet of glass. Then 
how is it done? Mr. Asprey Vere, an investigator of 
spirit phenomena, tells the secret in the following 
words: ("Modern Magic"). "In the box there is 
placed a balance lever which when the glass is 
in the slightest degree tilted, arrests the fly-fan, 
and thus prevents the machinery from moving. 
At the word of command the glass is made 
level, and the fly-fan being released, the ma- 
chinery moves, and a tune is played. When com- 
manded to stop, either side of the cord is pulled by a 
confederate behind the scenes, the balance lever 
drops, the fly-fan is arrested, and the music stops." 

One of the tests presented to the American public 
by this medium is the "spirit-hand," constructed of 



154 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

painted wood or papier mache, which raps out answers 
to questions, after it has been isolated from all contact 
by being placed on a sheet of glass supported on the 
backs of two chairs. 

It is a trick performed by every conjurer, and the 
secret is a piece of black silk thread, worked by con- 
federates stationed in the wings of the theatre, one at 
the right, the other at the left. The thread lies along 
the stage when not in use, but at the proper cue from 
the medium, it is lifted up and brought in contact 
with the wooden hand. The hand is so constructed 
that the palm lies on the glass sheet and the wrist, 
with a fancy lace cuff about it, is elevated an inch 
above the glass, the whole apparatus being so pivoted 
that a pressure of the thread from above will depress 
the wrist and elevate the palm. When the thread is 
relaxed the hand comes down on the glass with a 
thump and makes the spirit rap which is so effective. 
A rapping skull made on similar principles is also in 
vogue among mediums. 

CHARLES SLADE. 

Annie Eva Fay has a rival in Charles Slade, 
who is a clever performer and a most convincing 






ROPE-TYING. I55 

talker. His cabinet test is the same as Miss Fay's, 
but he has other specialties that are worth explaining 
— one is the "table-raising," and another is the "spirit 
neck-tie." The effect of the first experiment is as fol- 
lows: Slade, with his arms bared and coat removed, 
requests several gentlemen to sit around a long table, 
reserving the head for himself. Hands are placed on 
the table, and developments awaited. "Do you feel 
the table raising?" asks the medium, after a short 
pause. "We do!" comes the response of the sitters. 
Slade then rises; all stand up, and the "table is seen 
suspended in the air, about a foot from the floor of the 
stage. In a little while an uncontrollable desire 
seems to take possession of the table to rush about 
the stage. Frequently the medium requests several 
persons to get on the table, but that has no effect 
whatever. The same levitation takes place. The se- 
cret of this surprising mediumistic test is very simple. 
In the first place, the man who sits at the foot of the 
table is a confederate. Both medium and confeder- 
ate wear about their waists wide leather belts, ribbed 
and strengthened with steel bands, and supported 
from the shoulders by bands of leather and steel. In 
the front of each belt is a steel hinge concealed by the 



156 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

vest of the wearer. In the act of sitting down at the 
table the medium and his confederate quickly pull 
the hinges which catch under the top of the table 
when the sitters rise. The rest of the trick is easily 
comprehended. When the levitation act is finished 
the hinges are folded up and hidden under the vests of 
the performers. 

The "spirit neck-tie" is one of the best things in 
the whole range of mediumistic marvels, and has 
never to my knowledge been exposed. A rope is tied 
about the medium's neck with the knots at the back 
and the ends are thrust through two holes in one side 
of the cabinet, and tied in a bow knot on the outside. 
The holes in the cabinet must be on a level with the 
medium's neck, after he is seated. The curtains of 
the cabinet are then closed, and the committee re- 
quested to keep close watch on the bow-knot on the 
outside of the cabinet. The assistant in a short time 
pulls back the curtain from the cabinet on the side 
farthest from the medium, and reveals a sheeted fig- 
ure which writes messages and speaks to the specta- 
tors. Other materializations take place. The cur- 
tain is drawn. At this juncture the medium is heard 
calling: "Quick, quick, release me!" The assistant 



ROPE-TYING. 157 

unfastens the bow-knot, the ends of the rope are 
quickly drawn into the cabinet, and the medium 
comes forward, looking somewhat exhausted, with 
the rope still tied about his neck. The question re- 
solves itself into two factors — either the medium gets 
loose the neck-tie and impersonates the spirits or the 
materializations are genuine. "Gets loose! But that 
is impossible," exclaim the committee, "we watched 
the cord in the closest way." The secret of this sur- 
prising feat lies in a clever substitution. The tie is 
genuine, but the medium, after the curtains of the 
cabinet are closed, cuts the cord with a sharp knife, 
just about the region of the throat, and impersonates 
the ghosts, with the aid of various wigs and disguises 
concealed about him. Then he takes a second cord 
from his pocket, ties it about his neck with the same 
number of knots as are in the original rope and twists 
the neck-tie around so that these knots will appear at 
the back of his neck. Now, he exclaims, "Quick, 
quick, unfasten the cord." As soon as his assistant 
has untied the simple bow knot on the outside of the 
cabinet, the medium -quickly pulls the genuine rope 
into the cabinet and conceals it in his pocket. 

When he presents himself to the spectators the rope 



158 CHARLES SLADE S ADVERTISEMENT. 

SLADE 

Will fully demonstrate the various meth- 
ods employed by such renowned spiritual- 
istic mediums as Alex. Hume, Mrs. 
Hoffmann, Prof. Taylor, Chas. Cooke, 
Richard Bishop, Dr. Arnold, and various 
others, 

IN PLAIN, OPEN LIGHT. 

Every possible means will be used to enlighten the auditor 
as to whether these so-called wonders are enacted through the 
aid of spirits or are the result of natural agencies. 

SUCH PHENOMENA AS 

Spirit Materializations, 
Marvelous Superhuman Visions, 
Spiritualistic Rappings, 
Slate Writing, 
Spirit Pictures, 

Floating Tables and Chairs, 

Remarkable Test of the Human Mind, 
Second Sight Mysteries, 
A Human Being Isolated from Surrounding Objects 
Floating in Mid=Air. 

Committees will be selected by the audience to assist 
SLADE, and to report their views as to the why and wherefore 
of the many strange things that will be shown during the even- 
ing. This is done so that every person attending may learn 
the truth regarding the tests, whether they are genuine, or 
caused by expert trickery. 

Do not class or confound SLADE with the numerous so- 
called spirit mediums and spiritual exposers that travel through 
the country, like a set of roaming vampires, seeking whom 
they may devour. It is SLADE' S object in coming to your 
city to enlighten the people one way or the other as to the real 

TRUTH G0HQERN9NG THESE MYSTERIES. 



CHARLES SLADE S ADVERTISEMENT. 159 

Scientific men, and many great men, have believed there 
was a grain of essential truth in the claims of Spiritualism. It 
was believed more on the account of the want of power to deny 
it than anything else. The idea that under some strained and 
indefinable possibilities the spirit of the mortal man ma3^ com- 
municate with the spirit of the departed man is something that 
the great heart of humanity is prone to believe, as it has faith 
in future existence. No skeptic will deny any man's right to 
such a belief, but this little grain of hope has been the founda- 
tion for such extensive and heartless mediumistic frauds that it 
is constantly losing ground. 

J=£ NIGHT OF> 

Wonderful Manifestations 

The \Zeil_ IZ)fzj^w]si 

So that all may have an insight into the 

Spirit World 

And behold many things that are 

Strange and Startling. 

The Clergy, the Press, Learned Synods and Councils, Sage 
Philosophers and Scientists, in fact, the whole world have pro- 
claimed these Philosophical Idealisms to be an astounding 



YOU ??F?B BROUGHT 

Face to Face with the Spirits, 



A SMALL ADMISSION WILL BE CIIAROED TO 
DEFRAY EXPENSES. 



160 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

about his neck (presumed to be the original) is found 
to be correctly tied and untampered with. Much of 
the effect depends on the rapidity with which the 
medium conceals the original cord and comes out of 
the cabinet. The author has seen this trick per- 
formed in parlors, the holes being bored in a door. 

Charles Slade makes a great parade in his ad- 
vertisements about exoosing the vulgar tricks of 
bogus mediums, but he says nothing about the se- 
crets of his own pet illusions. His exposes are made 
for the purpose of enhancing his own mediumistic 
marvels. 

I insert a verbatim copy of the handbills 
with which he deluges the highways and byways of 
American cities and towns. 

PIERRE L, O. A. KEELER. 

Pierre Keeler's fame as a producer of spirit phe- 
nomena rests largely upon his materializing seances. 
It was his materializations that received the particu- 
lar attention of the Seybert Commission. The late 
Mr. Henry Seybert, who was an ardent believer in 
modern Spiritualism, presented to the University of 
Pennsylvania a sum of money to found a chair of 









MATERIALIZATIONS. l6l 

philosophy, with the proviso that the University 
should appoint a commission to investigate "all sys- 
tems of morals, religion or philosophy which assume 
to represent the truth, and particularly of modern 
Spiritualism." The following gentlemen were ac- 
cordingly appointed, and began their investigations: 
Dr. William Pepper, Dr. Joseph Leidy, Dr. George 
A. Koenig, Prof. R. E. Thompson, Prof. George S. 
Fullerton, and Dr. Horace H. Furness. Subsequent- 
ly others were added to the commission — Dr. Cole- 
man Sellers, Dr. James W. White, Dr. Calvin B. 
Kneer, and Dr. S. Weir Mitchell. Dr. Pepper, Pro- 
vost of the University, was ex-ofhcio chairman; Dr. 
Furness, acting chairman, and Prof. Fullerton, sec- 
retary. 

Keeler's materializations are thus described in the 
report of the commission: 

"On May 27 the Seybert commission held a meet- 
ing at the house of Mr. Furness at 8 p. m., to ex- 
amine the phenomena occurring in the presence of 
Mr. Pierre L. O. A. Keeler, a professional medium. 

"The medium, Mr. Keeler, is a young man, with 
well cut features, curly brown hair, a small sandy 
mustache, and rather worn and anxious expression; 



162 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

he is strongly built, about 5 feet 8 inches high, and 
with rather short, quite broad, and very muscular 
hands and strong wrists. The hands were examined 
by Dr. Pepper and Mr. Fullerton after the seance. 

"The stance was held in Mr. Furness' drawing- 
room, and a space was curtained off by the medium 
in the northeast corner, thus, (Fig. 25): 



\A - r 


* * 


■ 

\ 

G\ 


B 

V 


+ * 


+ * 


* * 


* * 


¥ 




\ 


, J 



FIG. 25. PIERRE KEELER'S CABINET SEANCB. 

"The curtain is represented by A, B; C, D and E 
are three chairs, placed in front of the curtain by the 



MATERIALIZATIONS. 163 

medium, in one of which (E) he afterwards sat; G de- 
notes the position of Mrs. Keeler; F is a small table, 
placed within the curtain, and upon which was a tam- 
bourine, a guitar, two bells, a hammer, a metallic 
ring; the stars show the positions of the spectators, who 
sat in a double row — the two stars at the top facing the 
letter A indicate the positions taken by Mrs. Kase and 
Col. Kase, friends of Mr. Keeler, according to the 
directions of the medium. 

"The curtain, or rather curtains, were of black mus- 
lin, and arranged as follows: There was a plain black 
curtain, which was stretched across the corner, falling 
to the floor. Its height, when in position, was 53 
inches; it was made thus: 



rrrnnnr 7 ! 




FIG. 26. PIERRE KEELBR'S CABINET CURTAIW. 

"The cord which held the curtain was 1, 2, and the 
flaps which are represented as standing above it (A, 



164 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

B, C, etc.), fell down over Al, Bl, CI, etc., and could 
be made to cover the shoulders of one sitting with his 
back against the curtain. A black curtain was also 
pinned against the wall, in the space curtained off, 
partly covering it. Another curtain was added to the 
one pictured, as will be described presently. 

"The medium asked Col. Kase to say a few words 
as to the necessity of observing the conditions, need 
of harmony, etc. And then the medium himself 
spoke a few words of similar import. He then drew 
the curtain along the cord (1, 2,) and fastened it; 
placed three wooden chairs in front of the curtain, as 
indicated in the diagram, and, saying he needed to 
form a battery, asked Miss Agnes Irwin to sit in chair 
D, and Mr. Yost in chair C, the medium himself sit- 
ting in chair E. A black curtain was then fastened 
by Mrs. Keeler over Mr. Keeler, Miss Irwin and Mr. 
Yost, being fastened at G, between E and D, between 
D and C, and beyond A; thus entirely covering the 
three sitting in front of the stretched curtain up to 
their necks; and when the flaps before mentioned 
were pulled down over their shoulders, nothing could 
be seen but the head of each. 

"Before the last curtain was fastened over them, 



MATERIALIZATIONS. 165 

the medium placed both his hands upon the forearm 
and wrist of Miss Irwin, the sleeve being pulled up 
for the purpose, and Miss Irwin grasped with her 
right hand the left wrist of Mr. Yost, his right hand 
being in sight to the right of the curtain. 

"After some piano music the medium said he felt 
no power from this 'battery,' and asked Mrs. E. D. 
Gillespie to take Miss Irwin's place. Hands and cur- 
tains were arranged as before. The lights were 
turned down until the room was quite dim. During 
the singing the medium turned to speak to Mr. Yost, 
and his body, which had before faced rather away 
from the two other persons of the 'battery' (which po- 
sition would have brought his right arm out in front 
of the stretched curtain), was now turned the other 
way, so that had he released his grasp upon Mrs. Gil- 
lespie's arm, his own right arm could have had free 
play in the curtained space behind him. His left 
knee also no longer stood out under the curtain in 
front, but showed a change of position. 

"At this time Mrs. Gillespie declared she felt a 
touch, and soon after so did Mr. Yost. The me- 
dium's body was distinctly inclined toward Mr. Yost 
at this time. Mrs. Gillespie said she felt taps, but de- 



166 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

clared that, to the best of her knowledge, she still felt 
the medium's two hands upon her arm. 

"Raps indicated that the spirit, George Christy, 
was present. As one of those present played on the 
piano, the tambourine was played in the curtained 
space and thrown over the curtain; bells were rung; 
the guitar was thrummed a little. At this time the 
medium's face was toward Mrs. Gillespie, and his 
right side toward the curtain. His body was further 
in against the curtain than either of the others. 
Upon being asked, Mrs. Gillespie then said she 
thought she still felt two hands upon her arm. 

'The guitar was then thrust out, at least the end of 
it was, at the bottom of the curtain, between Mrs. Gil- 
lespie and the medium. Mrs. Keeler drawing the 
curtain from over the toes of the medium's boots, to 
show where his feet were; the guitar was thrummed 
a little. Had the medium's right arm been free the 
thrumming could have been done quite easily with 
one hand. Afterward the guitar was elevated above 
the curtain; the tambourine, which was by Mrs. 
Keeler placed upon a stick held up within the inclos- 
ure, was made to whirl by the motion of the stick. 



MATERIALIZATIONS. 167 

The phenomena occurred successively, not simultan- 
eously. 

"When the guitar was held up, and when the tam- 
bourine was made to whirl, both of these were to the 
right of the medium, chiefly behind Mrs. Gillespie; 
they were just where they might have been produced 
by the right arm of the medium, had it been free. 
Two clothes-pins were then passed over the curtain, 
and they were used in drumming to piano music. 
They could easily be used in drumming by one hand 
alone, the fingers being thrust into them. The 
pins were afterward thrown out over the cur- 
tain. Mr. Sellers picked one up as soon as it fell, and 
found it warm in the split, as though it had been 
worn. The drumming was probably upon the tam- 
bourine. 

"A hand was seen moving rapidly with a trembling 
motion — which prevented it from being clearly ob- 
served — above the back curtain, between Mr. Yost 
and Mrs. Gillespie. Paper was passed over the cur- 
tain into the cabinet and notes were soon thrown out. 
The notes could have been written upon the small 
table within the enclosure by the right hand of the 
medium, had it been free. Mrs. Keeler then passed 



168 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

a coat over the curtain, and an arm was passed 
through the sleeve, the fingers, with the cuff around 
them being shown over the curtain. They were kept 
moving, and a close scrutiny was not possible. 

"Mr. Furness was then invited to hold a writing 
tablet in front of the curtain, when the hand, almost 
concealed by the coat-sleeve and the flaps mentioned 
as attached to the curtain, wrote with a pencil on the 
tablet. The writing was rapid, and the hand, when 
not writing, was kept in constant, tremulous motion. 
The hand was put forth, in this case not over the top 
curtain, but came from under the flap, and could 
easily have been the medium's right hand were it dis- 
engaged, for it was about on a level with his shoulder 
and to his right, between him and Mrs. Gillespie. 
Mr. Furness was allowed to pass his hand close to the 
curtain and grasp the hand for a moment. It was a 
right hand. 

"Soon after the medium complained of fatigue, and 
the sitting was discontinued. It was declared by the 
Spiritualists present to be a fairly successful seance. 
When the curtains were removed the small table in 
the enclosure was found to be overturned, and the 
bells, hammer, etc., on the floor. 



MATERIALIZATIONS. 169 

"It is interesting to note the space within which 
all the manifestations occurred. They were, without 
exception, where they would have been had they been 
produced by the medium's right arm. Nothing hap- 
pened to the left of the medium, nor very far over to 
the right. The sphere of activity was between the 
medium and Mr. Yost, and most of the phenomena 
occurred, as, for example, the whirling of the tam- 
bourine, behind Mrs. Gillespie. 

"The front curtain — that is, the main curtain which 
hung across the corner — was 85 inches in length, and 
the cord which supported it 53 inches from the floor. 
The three chairs which were placed in front of it were 
side by side, and it would not have been difficult for 
the medium to reach across and touch Mr. Yost. 
When Mrs. Keeler passed objects over the curtain, she 
invariably passed them to the right of the medium, 
although her position was on his left ; and the clothes- 
pins, paper, pencil, etc., were all passed over at a point 
where the medium's right hand could easily have 
reached them. 

"To have produced the phenomena by using his 
right hand the medium would have had to pass it 
under the curtain at his back. This curtain was not 



170 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

quite hidden by the front one at the end, near the 
medium, and this end both Mr. Sellers and Dr. Pep- 
per saw rise at the beginning of the seance. The 
only thing worthy of consideration, as opposed to a 
natural explanation of the phenomena, was the grasp 
of the medium's hand on Mrs. Gillespie's arm. 

"The grasp was evidently a tight one above the 
wrist, for the arm was bruised for about four inches. 
There was no evidence of a similar pressure above 
that, as the marks on the arm extended in all about 
five or six inches only. The pressure was sufficient 
to destroy the sensibility of the forearm, and it is 
doubtful whether Mrs. Gillespie, with her arm in such 
a condition could distinguish between the grasp of 
one hand, with a divided pressure (applied by the two 
last fingers and the thumb and index) and a double 
grip by two hands. Three of our number, Mr. Sel- 
lers, Mr. Furness, and Dr. White, can, with one hand, 
perfectly simulate the double grip. 

"It is specially worthy of note that Mrs. Gillespie 
declared that, when the medium first laid hold of her 
arms with his right hand before the curtain was put 
over them, it was with an undergrip, and she felt his 
right arm under her left. But when the medium 



MATERIALIZATIONS. iyi 

asked her if she felt both his hands upon her arm, and 
she said, yes, she could feel the grasp, but no arm 
under hers, though she moved her elbow around to 
find it — she felt a hand, but not an arm, and at no 
time during the seance did she find that arm. 

"It should be noted that both the medium and Mr. 
Yost took off their coats before being covered with 
the curtain. It was suggested by Dr. Pepper that 
this might have been "required by the medium as a 
precaution against movements on the part of Mr. 
Yost. The white shirt-sleeves would have shown 
against the black background." 

I attended a number of Keeler's materializing exhi- 
bitions in Washington, D. C, in the spring of 1895, 
and it is my opinion that the writing of his so-called 
spirit messages is a simple affair, the very long and 
elaborate ones being written before the seance begins 
and the short ones by the medium during the sitting. 
The latter are done in a scrawling, uncertain hand, 
just such penmanship one would execute when blind- 
folded. 

The evidence of Dr. G. H. La Fetra, of Washington, 
D. C, is sufficiently convincing on this point. Said Dr. 
La Fetra to me: "Some years ago I went with a friend, 



I 7 2 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

Col. Edward Hayes, to one of Mr. Keeler's light 
seances. It was rather early in the evening, and but few 
persons had assembled. Upon the mantel piece of the 
seance-room were several tablets of paper. Unobserved, 
I took up these tablets, one at a time, and drew the blade 
of my pen-knife across one end of each of them, so that 
I might identify the slips of paper torn therefrom by 
the nicks in them. In a little while, the room was rilled 
with people, and the seance began ; the gas being lowered 
to a dim religious light. When the time came for the 
writing, Mr. Keeler requested that some of the tablets of 
paper on the mantel be passed into the cabinet. This 
was done. Varicus persons present received 'spirit' 
communications, the slips of paper being thrown over 
the curtain of the cabinet by a 'materialized' hand. Some 
gentleman picked up the papers and read them, for the 
benefit of the spectators; afterwards he laid aside those 
not claimed by anybody. Some of these 'spirit' com- 
munications covered almost an entire slip. These were 
carefully written, some o r them in a fine hand. The 
short messages were roughly scrawled. After the 
seance, Col. Hayes and myself quietly pocketed a dozen 
or more of the slips. The next morning at my office we 
carefully examined them. In every instance, we found 



MATERIALIZATIONS. 173 

that the well-written, lengthy messages were inscribed on 
unnicked slips, the short ones being written on nicked 
slips." 

To me, this evidence of Dr. La Fetra seems mostcom- 
clusive, proving beyond the shadow of a doubt that Kee- 
ler prepared his long communications before the seance 
and had them concealed upon his person, throwing them 
out of the cabinet at the proper moment. He used the 
'nicked tablets for his short messages, written on the spot, 
thereby completely revealing his method of operating to 
the ingenious investigator. 

The late Dr. Leonard Caughey, of Baltimore, 
Maryland, an intimate friend of the writer, made a 
specialty of anti-Spiritualistic tricks, and among 
others performed this cabinet test of Keeler's. He 
bought the secret from a broken-down medium for a 
few dollars, and added to it certain effects of his own, 
that far surpassed any of Keeler's. The writer has 
seen Dr. Caughey give the tests, and create the ut- 
most astonishment. His improvement on the trick 
consisted in the use of a spring clasp like those used 
by gentlemen bicycle riders to keep their trousers in 
at the ankles. One end terminated in a soft rubber 
or chamois skin tip, shaped like a thumb, the other 



174 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

end had four representations of fingers. Two wire 
rings were soldered on the back of the clasp. This 
apparatus he had concealed under his vest. Before 
the curtain of the cabinet was drawn, Dr. Caughey 
grasped the arm of the lady on his right in the fol- 
lowing manner: The thumb of his left hand under 
her wrist, the fingers extended above it; the thumb of 
his right hand restin_ on the thumb of the left, the fingers 
lightly resting oh the fingers of the left hand. As soon as 
the curtain was fastened he extended the fourth and in- 
dex fingers of the left hand to the fullest extent and press- 
ed hard upon the lady's arm, relaxing at the same time 
the pressure of his second and third fingers. This 
movement exactly simulates the grasp of two hands, 
and enables the medium to take away his right hand 
altogether. Dr. .Caughey then took his spring clasp, 
opened it by inserting his thumb and first finger in 
the soldered rings above mentioned, and lightly fas- 
tened it on the lady's arm near the wrist, relaxing the 
pressure of the first and fourth fingers of the left hand 
at the same moment. "I will slide my right hand 
along your arm, and grasp you near the elbow. It 
will relieve the pressure about your wrist; besides be 
more convincing to you that there is no* trickery." 



MATERIALIZATIONS. 175 

So saying, he quickly slid the apparatus along her 
arm, and left it in the position spoken of. This pro- 
duces a perfect illusion, the clasp with its trick thumb 
and fingers working to perfection. 

This apparatus may also be used in the following 
manner : Roll up your sleeves and exhibit your hands to 
the sitter. Tell him you are going to stand behind 
him and grasp his arms firmly near the shoulders. 
Take your position immediately under the gas jet. 
Ask him to please lower the light. Produce the trick 
clasps, distend them by means of your thumbs and 
fingers, and after the gas is lowered, grasp the sitter in 
the manner described. Remove your fingers and 
thumbs lightly from the clasps and perform various 
mediumistic evolutions, such as writing a message on 
a pad or slate placed on the sitter's head; strike him 
gently on his cheek with a damp glove, etc. When 
the seance is over, insert your fingers and thumbs in 
the soldered rings, remove the clasps and conceal 
them quickly. 

EUSAPIA PALADINO, 

The materializing medium who has caused the 
greatest sensation since Home's death is Eusapia 



i 7 6 



PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 



Paladino, an Italian peasant woman. Signor Da- 
miani, of Florence, Italy, discovered her alleged psy- 
chical powers in 1875, and brought her into notice. 
An Italian Count was so impressed with the manifes- 
tations witnessed in the presence of the illiterate peas- 




FIG. 27. EUSAPIA PALADINO. 

ant woman, that he insisted upon "a commission of 
scientific men being called to investigate them." In 

the year 1884, this commission held seances with Eu- 
sapia, and afterwards declared that the phenomena 



MATERIALIZATIONS. 



177 



§MA~^Mf^ 




178 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

witnessed were inexplicable, and unquestionably the 
result of forces transcending ordinary experience. In 
the year 1892 another commission was formed in 
Milan to test Eusapia's powers as a medium, and from 
this period her fame dates, as the most remarkable 
psychic of modern times. The report drawn up by 
this commission was signed by Giovanni Schiaparelli, 
director of the Astronomical Observatory, Milan; Carl 
du Prel, doctor of philosophy, Munich; Angelo Brof- 
ferio, professor of physics in the Royal School of 
Agriculture, Portici; G. B. Ermacora, doctor of 
physics; Giorgio Finzi, doctor of physics. At 
some of the sittings were present Charles Richet 
and the famous Cesare Lombroso. The conclusion 
arrived at by these gentlemen was that Eusa- 
pia's mediumistic phenomena were most worthy of 
scientific attention, and were unfathomable. The me- 
dium reaped the benefit of this notoriety, and gave 
sittings to hundreds of investigators among the Ital- 
ian nobility, charging as high as $500 for a single 
seance. At last she was exposed by a clever Ameri- 
can, Dr. Richard Hodgson, of Boston, secretary of 
the American branch of the Society for Psychical Re- 
search. His account of the affair, communicated to 



MATERIALIZATIONS. 179 

the New York Herald, Jan. 10, 1897, is very inter- 
esting. Speaking of the report of the Milan commis- 
sion, he says: 

"Their report confessed to seeing and hearing 
many strange things, although they believed they had 
the hands and feet of the psychic so closely held that 
she could have had nothing to do with the manifesta- 
tions. 

"Chairs were moved, bells were rung, imprints of 
fingers were made on smoked paper and soft clay, ap- 
paritions of hands appeared on slightly luminous 
backgrounds, the chair of the medium and the me- 
dium herself were lifted to the table, the sound of 
trumpets, the contact of a seemingly human face, the 
touch of human hands, warm and moist, all were felt 

"Most of these phenomena were repeated, and the 
members of the commission were, with two excep- 
tions, satisfied that no known power could have pro- 
duced them. Professor Richet did not sign the re- 
port, but induced Signora Eusapia to go to an island 
he owned in the Mediterranean, where other exacting 
tests were made under other scientific eyes. The in- 
vestigators all agreed that the demonstrations could 
not be accounted for by ordinary forces. 



180 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

"I have found in my experience that learned scien- 
tific men are the most easily duped of any in the 
world. Instead of having a cold, inert piece of matter 
to investigate by exact processes and microscopic in- 
spections, they had a clever, bright woman doing her 
best to mystify them. They could not cope with her. 

"Professor Richet replied to an article I wrote, up- 
holding his position, and brought SignoraEusapiaPala- 
dino to Cambridge, England, where I joined the investi- 
gating committee. In the party were Professor 
Lodge, of Liverpool; Professor F. M. C. Meyer, sec- 
retary of the British Society for Psychical Research; 
Professor Richet and Mr. Henry Sedgwick, president 
of the society. 

"I found that the psychic, though giving a great 
variety of events, confined them to a very limited 
scope. She was seated during the tests at the end of 
a rectangular table and when the table was lifted it 
rose up directly at the other end. It was always so 
arranged that she was in the dark, even if the rest of 
the table was in the light; in the so-called light 
seances it was not light, the lamp being placed in an 
adjoining room. There were touches, punches and 
blows given, minor objects moved, some near and 



MATERIALIZATIONS. 181 

some further away ; the outline of faces and hands ap- 
peared, etc. 

"When I came to hold her hands I found a key to 
the mystery. 

"It was chiefly that she made one hand and one 
foot do the work of both, by adroit substitution. 
Given a free hand and a free foot, and nearly all the 
phenomena can be explained. She has very strong, 
supple hands, with deft fingers and great coolness and 
intelligence. 

"This is the way she substituted one hand for both. 
She placed one of her hands over A's hand and the 
other under B's hand. Then, in the movements of 
the arms during the manifestation, she worked her 
hands toward each other until they rested one upon 
the other, with A's hand at the bottom of the pile, B's 
at the top and both her own, one upon the other, be- 
tween. To draw out one hand and leave one and yet 
have the investigators feel that they still had a hand 
was easy. 

"With this hand free and in darkness there were 
great possibilities. There were strings, also, as I be- 
lieve, which were attached to different objects and 
moved them. The dim outlines of faces and hands 



182 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

seen were clever representations of the medium's own 
free hand in various shapes. 

"It is thought that if a medium was kept clapping 
her hands she could do nothing with them, but one 
of the investigators found the Signora slapping her 
face with one hand, producing just the same sound as 
if her hands met, while the other hand was free to 
produce mysterious phenomena. 

"I have tried the experiment of shifting hands when 
those who held them knew they were going to be 
tricked, and yet they did not discover when I made 
the exchange. I am thoroughly satisfied that Sig- 
nora Eusapia Paladino is a clever trickster." 

Eusapia Paladino was by no means disconcerted 
by Dr. Hodgson's expose, but continued giving her 
seances. At the present writing she is continuing them 
in France with a number of new illusions. Many who 
have had sittings with her declare that she is able to 
move heavy objects without contact. Possibly this is 
due to jugglery, or it may be due to some psychic 
force as yet not understood. 

F. W. TABOR. 

Mr. F. W. Tabor is a materializing medium whose 



MATERIALIZATIONS. 183 

specialty is the trumpet test for the production of 
spirit voices. I had a sitting with him at the house 
of Mr. X, of Washington, D. C, on the night of Jan. 
10, 1897. Seven persons, including the medium, sat 
around an ordinary-sized table in Air. X — 's drawing 
room, and formed a chain of hands, in the following 
manner: Each person placed his or her hands on 
the table with the thumbs crossed, and the little fin- 
gers of each hand touching the little fingers of the sit- 
ters on the right and left. A musical box was set go- 
ing and the light was turned out by Mr. X — , who 
broke the circle for that purpose, but immediately re- 
sumed his old position at the table. A large speak- 
ing trumpet of tin about three feet long had been 
placed upright in the center of the table, and near it 
was a pad of paper, and pencils. We waited patiently 
for some little time, the monotony being relieved by 
operatic airs from the music box, and the singing of 
hymns by the sitters. There were convulsive twitch- 
ings of the hands and feet of the medium, who com- 
plained of tingling sensations in those members. The 
first "phenomena" produced were balls of light danc- 
ing like will-o'-the-wisps over the table, and the ma- 
terialization of a luminous spirit hand. Taps upon the 



184 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

table signalled the arrival of Mr. Tabor's spirit con- 
trol, "Jim," a little newsboy, of San Francisco, who 
was run over some years ago by a street car. The 
medium was the first person who picked up the 
wounded waif and endeavored to administer to him, 
but without avail. "Jim" died soon after, and his dis- 
embodied spirit became the medium's control. Soon 
the trumpet arose from the table and floated over the 
heads of the sitters, and the voice of "Jim" was heard, 
sepulchral and awe-inspiring, through the instrument. 
Subsequently, messages of an impersonal character 
were communicated to Mr. X — and his wife. At one 
time the trumpet was heard knocking against the 
chandelier. During the s ance several of the ladies 
experienced the clasp of a ghostly hand about their 
wrists, and considerable excitement was occasioned 
thereby. 

It is not a difficult matter to explain this trumpet 
test. It hinges on one fact, freedom of the medium's 
right hand! In all of these holding tests, the medium 
employs a subterfuge to release his hands without the 
knowledge of the sitter on his right. During his con- 
vulsive twitchings, he quickly jerks his right hand 
away, but immediately extends the fingers of his left 



MATERIALIZATIONS. ^5 

hand, and connects the index fingers with the little 
finger of the sitter's left hand, thereby completing the 
chain, or "battery," as it is technically called. Were 
the medium to use his thumb in making the connec- 
tion the secret would be revealed, but the index finger 
of his left hand sufficiently simulates a little finger, and 
in the darkness the sitter is deceived. The right hand 
once released, the medium manipulates the trumpet 
and the phosphorescent spirit hands to his heart's con- 
tent. Sometimes he utilizes thetelescopic rod, or a pair of 
steel "crazy tongs," to elevate the trumpet to the ceil- 
ing. This holding test is absurdly simple and perhaps 
for that reason is so convincing. 

Mr. Tabor has another method of holding which is 
far more deceptive than the above. I am indebted to 
the "Revelations of a Spirit Medium" for an explanation 
of this test. "The investigators are seated in a circle 
around the table, male and female alternating. The 
person sitting on the medium's right — for he sits in the 
circle — grasps the medium's right wrist in his left hand, 
while his own right wrist is held by the sitter on his 
right and this is repeated clear around the circle. This 
makes each sitter hold the right wrist of his left 
hand neighbor in his left hand, while his own right 



186 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

hand wrist is held in the left hand of his neighbor on 
the left. Each one's hands are thus secured and en- 
gaged, including the medium's. It will be seen that 
no one of the sitters can have the use of his or her 
hands without one or the other of their neighbors 
knowing it. As each hand was held by a separate per- 
son, you cannot understand how he [the medium] 
could get the use of either of them except the one on 
his right was a confederate. Such was not the case, 
and still he did have the use of one hand, the right one. 
But how? He took his place before the light was 
turned down, and those holding him say he did not 
let go for an instant during the seance. He did 
though, after the light was turned out for the purpose 
of getting his handkerchief to blow his nose. After 
blowing his nose he requested the sitter to again take 
his wrist, which is done, but this time it is the wrist 
of the left hand instead of the right. He has crossed 
his legs and there is but one knee to be felt, hence the 
sitter on the right does not feel that she is reaching 
across the right knee and thinks it is the left knee which 
she does feel to be the right. He has let his hand slip 
down until instead of holding the sitter on his left by 
the wrist he has him by the fingers, thus allowing him 



MATERIALIZATIONS. 187 

a little more distance, and preventing the left hand 
sitter using the hand to feel about and discover the 
right hand sitter's hand on the wrist of the hand hold- 
ing his. You will see, now, that although both sitters 
are holding the same hand each one thinks he is hold- 
ing the one on his or her side of the medium. The 
balance of the seance is easy." 

An amusing incident happened during my sitting 
with Mr. Tabor. Growing somewhat weary waiting 
for him to "manifest," I determined to undertake some 
materializations on my own account. I adopted the 
subterfuge of getting my right hand loose from the 
lady on my right, and produced the spirit hand that 
clasped the wrist of several of the sitters in the circle. 
Mr. X — asked "Jim" if everything was all right in 
the circle, every hand promptly joined, and the mag- 
netic conditions perfect. "Jim" responded with three 
affirmative taps on the table top. I congratulate my- 
self on having deceived "Jim," a spirit operating in 
the fourth dimension of space, and supposedly cogni- 
zant of all that was transpiring at the seance. Once, 
when the medium was floating the trumpet over my 
head, I grasped the instrument and dashed it on the 
table. He made no further attempt to manipulate the 



188 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

trumpet in my direction, and very shortly brought the 
seance to a close. No written communications were 
received during the evening. 

4. Spirit Photography. 

You may deceive the human eye, say the advocates 
of spirit materializations, but you cannot deceive the 
eye of science, the photographic camera. Then they 
triumphantly produce the spirit photograph as in- 
dubitable evidence of the reality of ghostly materiali- 
zations. "Spirit photography," says the late Alex- 
andre Herrmann, in an article on magic, published in 
the Cosmopolitan Magazine, "was the invention of 
a man in London, and for ten years Spiritualists ac- 
cepted the pictures as genuine representations of orig- 
inals in the spirit land. The snap kodak has super- 
seded the necessity of the explanation of spirit pho- 
tography." 

To be more explicit, there are two ways of produc- 
ing spirit photographs, by double printing and by 
double exposure. In the first, the scene is printed from 
one negative, and the spirit printed in from another. 
In the second method, the group with the friendly 
spook in proper position is arranged, and the lens of 



SPIRIT PHOTOGRAPHY. 189 

the camera uncovered, half of the required exposure 
being given; then the lens is capped, and the person 
doing duty as the sheeted ghost gets out of sight, and 
the exposure is completed. The result is very effect- 
ive when the picture is printed, the real persons being 
represented sharp and well denned, while the ghost is 
but a hazy outline, transparent, through which the 
background shows. 

Every one interested in psychic phenomena who 
makes a pilgrimage to the Capital of the Nation visits 
the house of Dr. Theodore Hansmann. For ten years 
Dr. Hansmann has been an ardent student of Spirit- 
ualism, and has had sittings with many celebrated me- 
diums. The walls of his office are literally covered 
with spirit pictures of famous people of history, exe- 
cuted by spirits under supposed test conditions. 
There are drawings in color by Raphael, Michel An- 
gelo, and others. In one corner of the room is a 
book-case filled with slates, upon the surfaces of which 
are messages from the famous dead, attested by their 
signatures. 

In the fall of 1895, a correspondent of the New 
York Herald interviewed Doctor Hansmann on the 
subject of spirit photographs, and subsequently visited 



190 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

the United States Bureau of Ethnology, where an in- 
terview was had with Mr. Dinwiddie, an expert pho- 
tographer. Here is the substance of this scond in- 
terview, published in the Herald, Nov. 9, 1895. 

"Dr. Hansmann's collection of 'spirit' photographs 
is most interesting. There is one with the face of the 
Empress Josephine, and on the same plate is the head 
of Professor Darius Lyman, for a long time Chief of 
the Bureau of Navigation. The head of the Empress 
Josephine has a diadem around it, and the lights and 
shadows remind one of the well known portrait of her. 
On another plate are Grant and Lincoln,. Among his 
other photographs Dr. Hansmann brought out one 
of a man who was described to me as an Indian agent. 
Around his head were eleven smaller 'spirit' heads of 
Indians. In looking at the blue print closely it 
seemed to me as if I had seen those identical heads — 
the same as to light, shade and posing — somewhere 
before. 

"I was aided at the Bureau of Ethnology of the 
Smithsonian Institution by Mr. F. Webb Hodge, the 
acting director, who on looking at the blue print 
named the Indians directly; several of the pictures 
were of Indians still alive. This, of course, imme- 



SPIRIT PHOTOGRAPHY. I93 

diately disposed of the idea of the blue print Indians 
being spirits. 

"Moreover, Mr. Dinwiddie produced the negatives 
containing the identical portraits of these Indians and 
made me several proofs, which on a comparison, feat- 
ure by feature, light for light, and shade for shade, 
show unquestionably that the faces on the blue print 
are copies of the portraits made by the photographer 
of the Bureau of Ethnology. 

"Mr. Dinwiddie asked me to sit down for awhile, 
and offered to make me some spirit photographs. 
This he did, and the results obtained may be consid- 
ered as far better examples of the art of 'spirit' pho- 
tography than those of the medium, Keeler. 

"The matter was very simply done. Mr. Dinwiddie 
asked one of the ladies from the office to come in, and, 
she consented to pose as a spirit. She was placed be- 
fore the camera at a distance of about six feet, a red 
background was given her, so that it might photo- 
graph dark, and she was asked to put on a saintly ex- 
pression. This she did, and Mr. Dinwiddie gave the 
plate a half-second exposure. Another head was 
taken on the other side of the plate in much the same 
manner. After this was done the other or central 



194 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

photograph was taken with an exposure of four sec- 
onds, the plate being rather sensitive. 

"The plate was then taken to the dark room and 
developed. The negative came out very well at first, 
and the halo was put on afterward, when the plate had 
been dried. The halo was made by rubbing vignet- 
ting paste on the back, thus shutting out the light and 
leaving the paper its original hue. The white shad- 
owy heads which are frequently shown in black coats, 
and which the mediums claim cannot be explained, 
are also done in this manner with vignetting paste, the 
picture being afterward centred over these places, 
which will be white, the final result showing soft and 
indefinite, and giving the required spiritual look. 

"Mr. Dinwiddie did not attempt to produce the hazy 
effect, but this is very easily accomplished in the pho- 
tograph by taking the spirit heads a trifle out of focus. 
He claims that all of these apparent spiritual manifes- 
tations are but tricks of photography, and ones which 
might be accomplished by the veriest tyro, if he were 
to study the matter, and give his time to the experi- 
ment. It is only a wonder that the mediums do not 
do more of it. 

"The photograph mediums have always claimed 




FIG. 30— SPIRIT PHOTOGRAPH BY PRETENDED MEDIUM. 



SPIRIT PHOTOGRAPHY. 197 

that they were set upon by photographers for busi- 
ness reasons, but Mr. Dinwiddie is employed by the 
government and has no interests whatever in such a 
dispute." 

The eminent authority on photography, Mr. Walter 
E. Woodbury, gives many interesting exposes of me- 
diumistic photographs in his work, "Photographic 
Amusements," which the student of the subject would do 
well to consult. Fig. 30, taken from "Photographic 
Amusd^nts" is a reproduction of a "spirit" photograph 
made by a photographer claiming to be a medium. Says 
Mr. Woodbury: "Fortunately, however, we were in 
this case able to expose the fraud. Mr. W. M. Murray, 
a prominent member of the Society of Amateur Photo- 
graphers of New York, called our attention to the simi- 
larity between one of the 'spirit' images and a portrait 
painting by Sichel, the artist. A reproduction of the 
picture (Fig 31) is given herewith, and it will be seen 
at once that the 'spirit' image is copied from it." 

5. Thought Photography. 

During the year 1896 considerable stir was created 
by the investigation of Dr. Hippolyte Baraduc, of 
Paris, in the line of "Thought Photography," which 



I98 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

is of interest to psychic investigators generally. Dr. 
Baraduc claimed to have gotten photographic im- 
pressions of his thoughts, "made without sunlight or 
electricity or contact of any material kind." These 
impressions he declared to be subjective, being his 
own personal vibrations, the result of a force emanat- 
ing from the human personality, supra-mechanical, or 
spiritual. The experiments were carried on in a dark 
room, and according to his statement were highly suc- 
cessful. In a communication to an American corre- 
spondent, printed in the New York Herald, Janu- 
ary 3, 1897, he writes: "I have discovered a human, 
invisible light, differing altogether from the cathode 
rays discovered by Prof. Roentgen." Dr. Baraduc 
advanced the theory that our souls must be considered 
as centers of luminous forces, owing their existence 
partly to the attraction and partly to the repulsion of 
special and potent forces bred of the invisible cosmos." 
A number of French scientific journals took up the 
matter, and discussed "Thought Photography" at 
length, publishing numerous reproductions of the 
physician's photographs; but the more conservative 
journals of England, Germany and America remained 
silent on the subject, as it seemed to be on the border- 




FIG. 31— SIGEL'S ORIGINAL PICTURE OF FIG 30. 



THOUGHT PHOTOGRAPHY. 201 

land between science and charlatanry. On January 
11, 1897, the American newspapers contained an item 
to the effect that Drs. S. Millington Miller and Carle- 
ton Simon, of New York City, the former a specialist 
in brain physiology, and the latter an expert hypno- 
tist, had succeeded in obtaining successful thought 
photographs on dry plates from two hypnotized sub- 
jects. When the subjects were not hypnotized, the 
physicians reported no results. 

As "Thought Photography" is without the pale of 
known physical laws, stronger evidence is needed to 
support the claims made for it than that which has 
been adduced by the French and American investiga- 
tors. "Thought Photography" once established as a 
scientific fact, we shall have, perhaps, an explanation 
of genuine spirit photographs, if such there be. 

6. Apparitions of the Dead, 

In my chapter on subjective phenomena, I have not 
recorded any cases of phantasms of the dead, though 
several interesting examples of such have come under 
my notice. I have thought it better to refer the 
reader to the voluminous repoits of the Society for 
Psychical Research (England). In regard to these 



202 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

cases, the Society has reached the following conclu- 
sion: Between deaths and apparitions of dying persons 
a connection exists which is not due to chance alone. 
This we hold as a proved fact. 

The "Literary Digest," January 12, 1895, in review- 
ing this report, says: "Inquiries were instituted in 
17,000 cases of alleged apparitions. These inquiries 
elicited 1,249 replies from persons [in England and 
Wales] who affirmed that they themselves had seen the 
apparitions. Then the Society by further inquiries 
and cross-examinations sifted out all but eighty of 
these as discredited in some way, by error of memory 
or illusions of identity, or for some other reason, or 
which could be accounted for by common psychical 
laws. Of these eighty, fifty more were thrown out, to 
be on the safe side, and the remaining thirty are used 
as a basis for scientific consideration. All these con- 
sisted of apparitions of dead persons appearing to 
others within twelve hours after death, and many of 
them appearing at the very hour and even the very 
minute of death. The full account of the investigation 
is published in the tenth volume of the Society's Reports, 
under the title, 4 A Census of Hallucinations,' and Prof. 
J. H. Hyslop, of Columbia College, wrote an article 



APPARITIONS OF THE DEAD. 203 

giving the gist of the report and his comments in the 
'Independent,' (December 27, 1895), from which I cull 
these few notable paragraphs: 

" 'The committee which conducted the research rea- 
sons as follows: Since the death rate of England is 
19.15 out of every thousand, the chances of any per- 
son's dying on any particular day are one in 19,000 
(the ratio of 19.15 to 365 times 1,000). Out of 19,000 
death apparitions, therefore, one can be explained as 
a simple coincidence. But thirty apparitions out of 
1,300 cases is in the proportion of 440 out of 19,000, so 
that to refer these thirty well-authenticated appari- 
tions to coincidence is deemed impossible.' 

"And further on: 

" 'This is remarkable language for the signatures of 
Prof, and Mrs. Sidgwick, than whom few harder- 
headed skeptics could be found. It is more than 
borne out, however, by a consideration which the com- 
mittee does not mention, but which the facts entirely 
justify, and it is that since many of the apparitions oc- 
curred not merely on the day, but at the very hour 
or minute of death, the improbability of their explana- 
tion by chance is really much greater than the figures 
here given. That the apparition should occur within 



204 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

the hour of death the chance should be 1 to 356,000, 
or at the minute of death 1 to 21,360,000. To get 30 
cases, therefore, brought down to these limits we 
should have to collect thirty times these numbers of 
apparitions. Either these statistics are of no value in 
a study of this kind, or the Society's claim is made out 
that there is either a telepathic communication be- 
tween the dying and those who see their apparitions, 
or some causal connection not yet defined or deter- 
mined by science. That this connection may be due 
to favorable conditions in the subject of the hallucina- 
tion is admitted by the committee, if the person hav- 
ing the apparition is suffering from grief or anxiety 
about the person concerned. But it has two replies 
to such a criticism. The first is the query how and 
why under the circumstances does this effect coincide 
generally with the death of the person concerned, 
when anxiety is extended over a considerable period. 
The second is a still more triumphant reply, and it is 
that a large number of the cases show that the subject 
of the apparition has no knowledge of the dying per- 
son's sickness, place, or condition. In that case there 
is no alternative to searching elsewhere for the cause. 
If telepathy or thought transference will not explain 



APPARITIONS OF THE DEAD. 205 

the connection, resort must be had to some most ex- 
traordinary hypothesis. Most persons will probably 
accept telepathy as the easiest way out of the diffi- 
culty, though I am not sure that we are limited to 
this, the easiest explanation.' 

"Professor Hyslop then proceeds to consider the ef- 
fect of the committee's conclusion upon existing the- 
ories and speculations regarding the relations between 
mind and matter, and foresees with gratification as 
well as apprehension the revolt likely to be initiated 
against materialism and which may go so far as to 
discredit science and carry us far back to the credulous 
conditions of the Middle Ages. He says: 

" The point which the investigations of the Society 
for Psychical Research have already reached creates 
a question of transcendent interest, no matter what the 
solution of it may be, and will stimulate in the near 
future an amount of psychological and theological 
speculation of the most hasty and crude sort, which it 
will require the profoundest knowledge of mental 
phenomena, normal and abnormal, and the best meth- 
ods of science to counteract, and to keep within the 
limits of sober reason. The hardly won conquests of 
intellectual freedom and self-control can easily be 



206 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

overthrown by a reaction that will know no bounds 
and which it will be impossible to regulate. Though 
there may be some moral gain from the change of be- 
liefs, as will no doubt be the case in the long run, we 
have too recently escaped the intellectual, religious, 
and political tyranny of the Middle Ages to contem- 
plate the immediate consequences of the reaction with 
any complacency. But no one can calculate the enor- 
mous effect upon intellectual, social, and political con- 
ditions which would ensure upon the reconciliation of 
science and religion by the proof of immortality." 



IV. CONCLUSIONS. 

In my investigations of the physical phenomena of 
modern spiritualism, I have come to the following 
conclusion: While the majority of mediumistic man- 
ifestations are due to conjuring, there is a class of 
cases not ascribable to trickery, namely, those coming 
within the domain of psychic force — as exemplified by 
the experiments of Gasparin, Crookes, Lodge, Asakoff 
and Coues. In regard to the subjective phenomena, 
I am convinced that the recently annunciated law of 
telepathy will account for them. / discredit the theory 
of spirit intervention. If this be a correct conclusion, 
is there anything in mediumistic phenomena that will 
contribute to the solution of the problem of the im- 
mortality of the soul? I think there is. The existence 
of a subjective or subliminal consciousness in man, as 
illustrated in the phenomena mentioned, seems to indi- 
cate that the human personality is really a spiritual 
entity, possessed of unknown resources, and capable 
of preserving its identity despite the shock of time and 
the grave. Hudson says: "It is clear that the power 
207 



208 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

of telepathy has nothing in common with objective 
methods of communications between mind and mind; 
and that it is not the product of muscle or nerve or any 
physiological combination whatever, but rather sets 
these at naught, with their implications of space and 
time. . . . When disease seizes the physical frame 
and the body grows feeble, the objective mind invar- 
iably grows correspondingly weak. ... In the 
meantime, as the objective mind ceases to perform its 
functions, the subjective mind is most active and pow- 
erful. The individual may never before have exhib- 
ited any psychic power, and may never have con- 
sciously produced any psychic phenomena; yet at the 
supreme moment his soul is in active communication 
with loved ones at a distance, and the death message 
is often, when psychic conditions are favorable, con- 
sciously received. The records of telepathy demon- 
trate this proposition. Nay, more; they may be cited 
to show that in the hour of death the soul is capable of 
projecting a phantasm of such strength and objec- 
tivity that it may be an object of personal experience 
to those for whom it is intended. Moreover, it has 
happened that telepathic messages have been sent by 
the dying, at the moment of dissolution, giving all the 



CONCLUSIONS. 209 

particulars of the tragedy, when the death was caused 
by an unexpected blow which crushed the skull of the 
victim. It is obvious that in such cases it is impos- 
sible that the objective mind could have participated 
in the transaction. The evidence is indeed over- 
whelming, that, no matter what form death may as- 
sume, whether caused by lingering disease, old age, or 
violence, the subjective mind is never weakened by 
its approach or its presence. On the other hand, that 
the objective mind weakens with the body and per- 
ishes with the brain, is a fact confirmed by every-day 
observation and universal experience." 

This hypothesis of the objective and subjective 
minds has been criticised by many psychologists on 
the ground of its extreme dualism. No such dual- 
ism exists, they contend. However, Hudson's the- 
ory is only a working hypothesis at best, to> explain 
certain extraordinary facts in human experience. 
Future investigators may be able to throw more light 
on the subject. But this one thing may be enun- 
ciated: Telepathy is an incontrovertible fact, account 
for it as you may, a physical force or a spiritual en- 
ergy. If physical, then it does not follow any of the 
known operations of physical laws as established by 



2IO PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

modern science, especially in the case of transmission 
of thought at a distance. 

It is true, that all evidence in support of telepathic 
communications is more or less ex parte in character, 
and does not possess that validity which orthodox 
science requires of investigators. Any student of the 
physical laws of matter can make investigations for 
himself, and at any time, provided he has the proper 
apparatus. Explain to a person that water is com- 
posed of two gases, oxygen and hydrogen, and he can 
easily verify the fact for himself by combining the 
gases, in the combination of H 2 0, and afterwards lib- 
erate them by a current of electricity. But experi- 
ments in telepathy and clairvoyance cannot be made at 
will; they are isolated in character, and consequently 
are regarded with suspicion by orthodox science. 
Besides this, they transcend the materialistic theories 
of science as regards the universe, and one is almost 
compelled to use the old metaphysical terms of mind 
and matter, body and soul, in describing the phe- 
nomena. 

It is an undoubted fact that science has broken away 
from the old theory regarding the distinction between 
mind and matter. Says Prof. Wm. Romaine Newbold, 



CONCLUSIONS. 211 

"In the scientific world it has fallen into such disfavor 
that in many circles it is almost as disgraceful to avow 
belief in it as in witchcraft or ghosts." We have today a 
school of "physiological-psychology," calling itself 
"psychology without a soul." This school is devoted 
to the laboratory method of studying mind. "The 
laboratory method," says Roark, in his "Psychology 
in Education," "is concerned mostly with physiological 
psychology, which is, after all, only physiology, even 
though it be the physiology of the nervous system and 
the special organs of sense — the material tools of the 
mind. And after physiological psychology has had 
its rather prolix say, causal connection of the physical 
organs with psychic action is as obscure and impos- 
sible of explanation as ever. But the laboratory 
method can be of excellent service in determining the 
material conditions of mental action, in detecting spe- 
cial deficiencies and weaknesses, and in accumulating 
valuable statistics along these lines. 

"It has been asserted that no science can claim to be 
exact until it can be reduced to formulas of weights 
and measures. The assertion begs the question for 
the materialists. We shall probably never be able to 
weigh an idea or measure the cubic contents of the 



212 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

memory; but the rapidity with which ideas are formed 
or reproduced by memory has been measured in many 
particular instances, and the circumstances that retard 
or accelerate their formation or reproduction have 
been positively ascertained and classified." 

That it is possible to explain all mental phenomena 
in terms of physics is by no means the unanimous ver- 
dict of scientific men. A small group of students of 
late years have detached themselves from the purely 
materialistic school and broken ground in the region 
of the supernormal Says Professor Newbold (Pop- 
ular Science Monthly, January, 1897): "In the su- 
pernormal field, the facts already reported, should they 
be substantiated by further inquiry, would go far to- 
wards showing that consciousness is an entity governed 
by laws and possessed of powers incapable of expres- 
sion in material conceptions. 

"I do not myself regard the theory of independence 
[of mind and body] as proved, but I think we have 
enough evidence for it to destroy in any candid mind 
that considers it that absolute credulity as to its possi- 
bility which at present characterizes the average man 
of science." 



PART SECOND. 

MADAME BLAVATSKY AND THE THEO- 
SOPHISTS. 



1. The Priestess* 

The greatest "fantaisiste" of modern tim ;s was Ma- 
dame Blavatsky, spirit medium, Priestess of Isis, and 
founder of the Theosophical Society. Her life is one 
long catalogue of wonders. In appearance she was 
enormously fat, had a harsh, disagreeable voice, and 
a violent temper, dressed in a slovenly manner, usually 
in loose wrappers, smoked cigarettes incessantly, and 
cared little or nothing for the conventionalities of life. 
But in spite of all — unprepossessing appearance and 
gross habits — she exercised a powerful personal mag- 
netism over those who came in contact with her. She 
was the Sphinx of the second half of this Century; a 
Pythoness in tinsel robes who strutted across the 
world's stage "full of sound and fury," and disappeared 
from view behind the dark veil of Isis, which she, 



214 MADAME BLAVATSKY. 

the fin-de-siecle prophetess, tried to draw aside during 
her earthly career. 

In searching for facts concerning the life of this 
really remarkable woman — remarkable for the influ- 
ence she has exerted upon the thought of this latter 
end of the nineteenth century — I have read all that has 
been written about her by prominent Theosophists, 
have talked with many who knew her intimately, and 
now endeavor to present the truth concerning her 
and her career. The leading work on the subject is 
"Incidents in the Life of Madame Blavatsky," com- 
piled from information supplied by her relatives and 
friends, and edited by A. P. Sinnett, author of "The 
Occult World." The frontispiece to the book is a re- 
production of a portrait of Madame Blavatsky, painted 
by H. Schmiechen, and represents the lady seated on 
the steps of an ancient ruin, holding a parchment in 
her hand. She is garbed somewhat after the fashion 
of a Cumaean Sibyl and gazes straight before her with 
the deep unfathomable eyes of a mystic, as if she were 
reading the profound riddles of the ages, and behold- 
ing the sands of Time falling hot and swift into the 
glass of eternity — 

"And all things creeping to a day of doom." 




FIG. 32— MADAME BLAVATSKY. 



THE 1 RIESTESS. 217 

Sinnett's life of the High Priestess is a strange con- 
coction of monstrous absurdities ; it is full of the weird- 
est happenings that were ever vouchsafed to mortal. 
We cannot put much faith in this biography, and must 
delve in other mines for information; but some of the 
remarkable passages of the book are worth perusing, 
particularly if the reader be prone to midnight mus- 
ings of a ghostly character. 

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, the daughter of Col. 
Peter Hahn of the Russian Army, and granddaughter 
of General Alexis Hahn von Rottenstern Hahn (a 
noble family of Mecklenburg, Germany, settled 
in Russia), was born in Eskaterinoslaw, in the 
south of Russia, in 1831. "She had," says Sinnett, 
"a strange childhood, replete with abnormal oc- 
currences. The year of her birth was fatal 
for Russia, as for all Europe, owing to the first visit 
of the cholera, that terrible plague that decimated 
from 1830 to 1832 in turn nearly every town of the 

Continent Her birth was quickened by 

several deaths in the house, and she was ushered into 
the world amid coffins and desolation, on the night be- 
tween July 30th and 31st, weak and apparently no den- 
izen of this world." A hurried baptism was given lest 



218 MADAME BLAVATSKY. 

the child die in original sin, and the ceremony was that 
of the Greek Church. During the orthodox baptismal 
rite no person is allowed to sit, but a child aunt of the 
baby, tired of standing for nearly an hour, settled 
down upon the floor, just behind the officiating priest. 
No one perceived her, as she sat nodding drowsily. 
The ceremony was nearing its close. The sponsors 
were just in the act of renouncing the Evil One and 
his deeds, a renunciation emphasized in the Greek 
Church by thrice spitting upon the invisible enemy, 
when the little lady, toying with her lighted taper at 
the feet of the crowd, inadvertantly set fire to the long 
flowing robes of the priest, no one remarking the ac- 
cident till it was too late. The result was an imme- 
diate conflagration, during which several persons — 
chiefly the old priest — were sever ly * urnt. That was 
another bad omen, according to the superstitious be- 
liefs of orthodox Russia; and the innocent cause of it, 
the future Madame Blavatsky, was doomed from that 
day, in the eyes of all the town, to an eve ltful, troubled 
life. 

"Mile. Hahn was born, of course, with all the char- 
acteristics of what is known in Spiritualism as medium- 
ship in the most extraordinary degree, also with gifts 



THE PRIESTESS. 219 

as a clairvoyant of an almost equally unexampled or- 
der. On various occasions while apparently in an 
ordinary sleep, she would answer questions, put by 
persons who took hold of her hand, about lost 
property, etc., as though she were a sibyl entranced. 
For years she would, in childish impulse, shock 
strangers with whom she came in contact, and visitors 
to the house, by looking them intently in the face and 
telling them they would die at such and such a time, 
or she would prophesy to them some accident or mis- 
fortune that would befall them. And since her prog- 
nostications usually came true, she was the terror, in 
this respect, of the domestic circle." 

Madame V. P. Jelihowsy, a sister of the seeress, has 
furnished to the world many extraordinary stories of 
Mme. Blavatsky's childhood, published in various 
Russian periodicals. At the age of eleven the Sibyl 
lost her mother, and went to live with her grandpa- 
rents at Saratow, her grandfather being civil governor 
of the place. The family mansion was a lumbering 
old country place "full of subterraneous galleries, long 
abandoned passages, turrets, and most weird nooks and 
corners. It looked more like a mediaeval ruined castle 
than a building of the last century." The ghosts of 



220 MADAME BLAVATSKY. 

martyred serfs were supposed to haunt the uncanny 
building, and strange legends were told by the old 
family servants of weir-wolves and goblins that 
prowled about the dark forests of the estate. Here, in 
this House of Usher, the Sibyl lived and dreamed, and 
at this period exhibited many abnormal psychic pe- 
culiarities, ascribed by her orthodox governess and 
nurses of the Greek Church to possession by the devil. 
She had at times ungovernable fits of temper; she 
would ride any Cossack horse on the place astride a 
man's saddle ; go into trances and scare everyone from 
the master of the mansion down to the humblest 
vodka drinker on the estate. 

In 1848, at the age of 17, she married General 
Count Blavatsky, a gouty old Russian of 70, whom 
she called "the plumed raven," but left him after 
a brief period of marital infelicity. From this 
time dates her career as a thaumaturgist. She 
travelled through India and made an honest attempt 
to penetrate into the mysterious confines of Thibet, 
but succeeded in getting only a few miles from the 
frontier, owing to the fanaticism of the natives. 

In India, as elsewhere, she was accused of being a 
Russian spy and was generally regarded with suspi- 




I'm. 53— MAHATMA LETTEB. 



THE PRIESTESS. 223 

cion by the police authorities. After some months of 
erratic wanderings she reappeared in Russia, this time 

in Tiflis, at the residence of a relative, Prince . 

It was a gloomy, grewsome chateau, well suited for 
Spiritualistic seances, and Madame Blavatsky, it is 
claimed, frightened the guests during the long winter 
evenings with table-tippings, spirit rappings, etc. It 
was then the tall candles in the drawing-room burnt 
low, the gobelin tapestry rustled, sighs were heard, 
strange music "resounded in the air," and luminous 
forms were seen trailing their ghostly garments across 
the "tufted flooi." 

The gossipy Madame de Jelihowsy, in her reminis- 
cences, classifies the phenomena, witnessed in the pres- 
ence of her Sibylline sister, as follows: 

1. Direct and perfectly clearly written and verbal 
answers to mental questions — or "thought reading." 

2. Private secrets, unknown to all but the inter- 
ested party, divulged, [especially in the case of those 
persons who mentioned insulting doubts]. 

3. Change of weight in furniture and persons at will. 

4. Letters from unknown correspondents, and im- 
mediate answers written to queries made, and found 
in the most out-of-the-way mysterious places. 



224 MADAME BLAVATSKY. 

5. Appearance of objects unclaimed by anyone 
present. 

6. Sounds of musical notes in the air wherever 
Madame Blavatsky desired they should resound. 

In the year 1858, the High Priestess was at the 
house of General Yakontoff at Pskoff, Russia. One 
night when the drawing-room was full of visitors, she 
began to describe the mediumistic feat of making 
light objects heavy and heavy objects light. 

"Can you perform such a miracle?" ironically asked 
her brother, Leonide de Hahn, who always doubted 
his sister's occult powers. 

"I can," was the firm reply. 

De Hahn went to a small chess table, lifted it as 
though it were a feather, and said: "Suppose you 
try your powers on this." 

"With pleasure!" replied Mme. Blavatsky. "Place 
the table on the floor, and step aside for a minute." 
He complied with her request. 

She fixed her large blue eyes intently upon the chess 
table and said without removing her gaze, "Lift it 
now." 

The young man exerted all his strength, but the 



THE PRIESTESS. 227 

table would not budge an inch. Another guest tried 
with the same result, but the wood only cracked, yield- 
ing to no effort. 

"Now, lift it," said Madame Blavatsky calmly, 
whereupon De Hahn picked it up with the greatest 
ease. Loud applause greeted this extraordinary feat, 
and the skeptical brother, so say the occultists, was ut- 
terly nonplussed. 

Madame Blavatsky, as recorded by Sinnett, stated 
afterwards that the above phenomenon could be pro- 
duced in two different ways : "First, through the exer- 
cise of her own will directing the magnetic currents so 
that the pressure on the table became such that no 
physical force could move it; second, through the 
action of those beings with whom she was in constant 
communication, and who, although unseen, were able 
to hold the table against all opposition." 

The writer has seen similar feats performed by hyp- 
notizers with good subjects without the intervention of 
any ghostly intelligences. 

In 1870 the Priestess of Isis journeyed through 
Egypt in company with a certain Countess K — , and 
endeavored to form a Spiritualistic society at Cairo, for 
the investigation of psychic phenomena, but things 



228 MADAME BLAVATSKY. 

growing unpleasant for her she left the land of pyra- 
mids and papyri in hot haste. It is related of her that 
during this Egyptian sojourn she spent one night 
in the King's sepulchre in the bowels of the Great Py- 
ramid of Cheops, sleeping in the very sarcophagus 
where once reposed the mummy of a Pharoah. 
Weird sights were seen by the entranced occultist and 
strange sounds were heard on that eventful occasion 
within the shadowy mortuary chamber of the pyra- 
mid. At times she would let fall mysterious hints of 
what she saw that night, but they were as incompre- 
hensible as the riddles of the fabled Sphinx. 

Countess Paschkoff chronicles a curious story about 
the Priestess of Isis, which reminds one somewhat of 
the last chapter in Bulwer's occult novel, "A Strange 
Story." The Countess relates that she was once trav- 
elling between Baalbec and the river Orontes, and in 
the desert came across the caravan belonging to 
Madame Blavatsky. They joined company and to- 
wards nightfall pitched camp near the village of El Mar- 
sum amid some ancient ruins. Among the relics of a 
Pagan civilization stood a great monument covered 
with outlandish hieroglyphics. The Countess was 
curious to decipher the inscriptions, and begged Ma- 



THE PRIESTESS. 229 

dame Blavatsky to unravel their meaning, but the 
Priestess of Isis, notwithstanding her great archaeo- 
logical knowledge, was unable to do so. However, 
she said: "Wait until night, and we shall see!" When 
the ruins were wrapped in sombre shadow, Mme. 
Blavatsky drew a great circle upon the ground about 
the monument, and invited the Countess to stand 
within the mystic confines. A fire was built and upon 
it were thrown various aromatic herbs and incense. 
Cabalistic spells were recited by the sorceress, as the 
smoke from the incense ascended, and then she thrice 
commanded the spirit to whom the monument was 
erected to appear. Soon the cloud of smoke from the 
burning incense assumed the shape of an old man 
with a long white beard. A voice from a distance 
pierced the misty image, and spoke: "I am Hiero, 
one of the priests of a great temple erected to the gods, 
that stood upon this spot. This monument was the 
altar. Behold!" No sooner were the words pro- 
nounced than a phantasmagoric vision of a gigantic 
temple appeared, supported by ponderous columns, 
and a great city was seen covering the distant plain, 
but all soon faded into thin air. 

This story was related to a select coterie of occult- 



230 MADAME BLAVATSKY. 

ists assembled in social conclave at the headquarters 
in New York. The question is, had the charming 
Russian Countess dreamed this, or was she trying to 
exploit herself as a traveler who had come "out of the 
mysteiious East" and had seen strange things? 

We next hear of the famous occultist in the United 
States, where she associated chiefly with spirit-me- 
diums, enchanters, professional clairvoyants, and the 
like. 

"At this period of her career she had not,"* says 
Dr. Eliott Coues, a learned investigator of psychic 
phenomena, "been metamorphosed into a Theosophist. 
She was simply exploiting as a Spiritualistic medium. 
Her most familiar spook was a ghostly fiction named 
'John King.' This fellow is supposed to have been 
a pirate, condemned for his atrocities to serve earth- 
bound for a term of years, and to present himself at 
materializing seances on call. Any medium who per- 
sonates this ghost puts on a heavy black horse-hair 
beard and a white bed sheet and talks in sepulchral 
chest tones. John is as standard and sure-enough 
a ghost as ever appeared before the public. Most of 
the leading mediums, both in Europe and America, 



Communication to New York Sun, 1892. 



THE PRIESTESS. 231 

keep him in stock. I have often seen the old fellow 
in New York, Philadelphia, and Washington through 
more mediums that I can remember the names of. 
Our late Minister to Portugul, Mr. J. O'Sullivan, has 
a photograph of him at full length, floating in space, 
holding up a peculiar globe of light shaped like a glass 
decanter. This trustworthy likeness was taken in Eu- 
rope, and I think in Russia, but am not sure on that 
point. I once had the pleasure of introducing the 
pirate king to my friend Prof. Alfred Russel Wallace, 
in the person of Pierre L. O. A. Keeler, a noted me- 
dium of Washington. 

"But the connection between the pirate and my story 
is this : Madame Blavatsky was exploiting King at the 
time of which I speak, and several of her letteis to friends, 
which I have read, are curiously scribbled in red and 
blue pencil with sentences and signatures of 'John 
King,' just as, later on, 'Koot Hoomi' used to miracu- 
lously precipitate himself upon her stationery in all 
sorts of colored crayons. And, by the way, I may 
call the reader's attention to the fact that while the in- 
genious creature was operating in Cairo, her Mahat- 
mas were of the Egyptian order of architecture, and 
located in the ruins of Thebes or Karnak. They were 



232 MADAME BLAVATSKY. 

not put in turbans and shifted to Thibet till late in 
1879." 

In 1875, while residing in New York, Madame Bla- 
vatsky conceived the idea of establishing a Theosophi- 
cal Society. Stupendous thought! Cagliostro in the 
eighteenth century founded his Egyptian Free- 
Masonry for the re-generation of mankind, and Bla- 
vatsky in the nineteenth century laid the corner stone 
of modern Theosophy for a similar purpose. Caglios- 
tro had his High Priestess in the person of a beautiful 
wife, Lorenza Feliciani, and Blavatsky her Hiero- 
phant in the somewhat prosaic guise of a New York 
reporter, Col. Olcott, since then a famous personage 
in occult circles. 

During the Civil War, Olcott served in the Quar- 
termaster's Department of the Army and afterwards 
held a position in the Internal Revenue Service of the 
United States. In 18 — he was a newspaper man in 
New York, and was sent by the Graphic to investi- 
gate the alleged Spiritualistic phenomena transpiring 
in the Eddy family in Chittenden, Vermont. There he 
met Madame Blavatsky. It was his fate. 

Col. Olcott's description of his first sight of Mme. 
Blavatsky is interesting: 



THE 1 RIESTESS. 



233 



"The dinner at Eddy's was at noon, and it was from 
the entrance door of the bare and comfortless dining- 
room that Kappes and I first saw H. P. B. She had 
arrived shortly before noon with a French Canadian 




#a 



lady, and they were at table as we entered. My eye 
was first attracted by a scarlet Garibaldian shirt the 
former wore, as being in vivid contrast with the dull 
colors around. Her hair was then a thick blonde 
mop, worn shorter than the shoulders, and it stood 
out from her head, silken, soft, and crinkled to the 
roots, like the fleece of a Cotswold ewe. This and the 



234 MADAME BLAVATSKY. 

red shirt were what struck my attention before I took 
in the picture of her features. It was a massive Kal- 
muck face, contrasting in its suggestion of power, cul- 
ture, and imperiousness, as strangely with the com- 
monplace visages about the room, as her red garment 
did with the gray and white tones of the wall and 
woodwork, and the dull costumes of the rest of the 
guests. All sorts of cranky people were continually 
coming and going at Eddy's, to see the mediumistic 
phenomena, and it only struck me on seeing this ec- 
centric lady that this was but one more of the sort. 
Pausing on the door-sill, I whispered to Kappes, 
'Good gracious! look at that specimen, will you!' I 
went straight across and took a seat opposite her to 
indulge my favorite habit of character-study." 

Commenting on this meeting, J. Ransom Bridges, 
in the Arena, for April, 1895, remarks: "After din- 
ner Colonel Olcott scraped an acquaintance by op- 
portunely offering her a light for a cigarette which she 
proceeded to roll for herself. This 'light' must have 
been charged with Theosophical karma, for the burn- 
ing match or end ®f a lighted cigar — the Colonel does 
not specify — lit a train of causes and their effects 
which now are making history and are world-wide in 



THE PRIESTESS. 



235 






^-6£l**f' tr&Ltstytm**^*' «^ fife* ■c0v£^cL+*&*' 










FIG. 36. OATH OF SECRECY TAKEN BY CHARTER MEMBERS OF THE THEO- 
SOPHICAL SOCIETY. 

[Kindness of the New York Herald.] 



236 MADAME BLAVATSKY. 

their importance. So confirmed a pessimist on Theo- 
sophical questions as Henry Sidgwick of the London 
Society for Psychical Research, says, 'Even if it [the 
Theosophical Society] were to expire next year, its 
twenty years' existence would be a phenomenon of 
some interest for a historian of European society in the 
nineteenth century.' " 

The seances at the Eddy house must have been 
character studies indeed. The place where the ghosts 
were materialized was a large apartment over the din- 
ing room of the ancient homestead. A dark closet, 
at one end of the room, with a rough blanket stretched 
across it, served as a cabinet. Red Indians and 
pirates were the favorite materializations, but when 
Madame Blavatsky appeared on the scene, ghosts of 
Turks, Kurdish cavaliers, and Kalmucks visited this 
earthly scene, much to the surprise of every one. Ol- 
cott cites this fact as evidence of the genuineness of 
the materializations, remarking, "how could the ignor- 
ant Eddy boys, rough, rude, uncultured farmers, get 
the costumes and accessories for characters of this 
kind in a remote Vermont village." 



WHAT IS THEOSOPHY? 237 

2. What is Theosophy. 

Let us turn aside at this juncture to ask, "What is 
Theosophy." The word Theosophy (Theosophia — 
divine knowledge) appears to have been used about 
the Third century, A. D., by the Neo^Platonists, or 
Gnostics of Alexandria, but the great principles of the 
doctrine, however, were taught hundreds of years prior 
to the mystical school established at Alexandria. "It is 
not," says an interesting writer on the subject, "an 
outgrowth of Buddhism although many Buddhists see 
in its doctrines the reflection of Buddha. It proposes 
to give its followers the esoteric, or inner-spiritual 
meaning of the great religious teachers of the world. 
It asserts repeated re-incarnations, or rebirths of the 
soul on earth, until it is fully purged of evil, and be- 
comes fit to be absorbed into the Deity whence it 
came, gaining thereby Nirvana, or unconsciousness." 
Some Theosophists claim that Nirvana is not a state 
of unconsciousness, but just the converse, a state of 
the most intensified consciousness, during which the 
soul remembers all of its previous incarnations. 

Madame Blavatsky claimed that "there exists in 
Thibet a brotherhood whose members have acquired a 
power over Nature which enables them to perform 



238 MADAME BLAVATSKY. 

wonders beyond the reach of ordinary men. She de- 
clared herself to be a chela, or disciple of these 
brothers (spoken of also as 'Adepts' and as 'Mahat- 
mas'), and asserted that they took a special interest in 
the Theosophical Society and all initiates in occult 
lore, being able to cause apparitions of themselves in 
places where their bodies were not; and that they not 
only appeared but communicated intelligently with 
those whom they thus visited and themselves per- 
ceived what was going on where their phantoms ap- 
peared." This phantasmal appearance she called the 
projection of the astral form. Many of the phenom- 
ena witnessed in the presence of the Sibyl were sup- 
posed to be the work of the mystic brotherhood who 
took SO' peculiar an interest in the Theosophical So- 
ciety and its members. The Madame did not claim 
to be the founder of a new religious faith, but simply 
the reviver of a creed that has slumbered in the Orient 
for centuries, and declared herself to be the Messenger 
of these Mahatmas to the scoffing Western world. 

Speaking of the Mahatmas, she says in 'Tsis Un- 
veiled": * * * "Travelers have met these adepts 
on the shores of the sacred Ganges, brushed against 
them on the silent ruins of Thebes, and in the myster- 



WHAT IS THEOSOPHY? 339 

ious deserted chambers of Luxor. Within the halls 
upon whose blue and golden vaults the weird signs at- 
tract attention, but whose secret meaning is never 
penetrated by the idle gazers, they have been seen, but 
seldom recognized. Historical memoirs have re- 
corded their presence in the brilliantly illuminated 
salons of European aristocracy. They have been en- 
countered again on the arid and desolate plains of the 
Great Sahara, or in the caves of Elephanta. They 
may be found everywhere, but make themselves 
known only to those who have devoted their lives to 
unselfish study, and are not likely to turn back." 

The Theosophical Society was organized in New 
York, Nov. 17, 1875. 

Mr. Arthur Lillie, in his interesting work, "Ma- 
dame Blavatsky and Her Theosophy," speaking about 
the founding of the Society, says: 

"Its moving spirit was a Mr. Felt, who had visited 
Egypt and studied its antiquities. He was a student 
also of the Kabbala ; and he had a somewhat eccentric 
theory that the dog-headed and hawk-headed figures 
painted on the Egyptian monuments were not mere 
symbols, but accurate portraits of the 'Elementals.' 
He professed to be able to evoke and control them. 



240 MADAME BLAVATSKY. 

He announced that he had discovered the secret 'for- 
mularies' of the old Egyptian magicians. Plainly, the 
Theosophical Society at starting was an Egyptian 
school of occultism. Indeed Colonel Olcott, who fur- 
nishes these details ('Diary Leaves' in the Theoso- 
phist, November to December, 1892), lets out that the 
first title suggested was the 'Egyptological Society.' " 

There were strange reports set afloat at the time of 
the organization of the Society of the mysterious ap- 
pearance of a Hindoo adept in his astral body at the 
"lamasery" on Forty-seventh street. It was said to 
be that of a certain Mahatma Koot Hoomi. Olcott 
declared that the adept left behind him as a souvenir 
of his presence, a turban, which was exhibited on all 
occasions by the enterprising Hierophant. William 
Q. Judge, a noted writer on Spiritualism, who had 
met the Madame at Irving Place in the winter of 1874, 
joined the Society about this time, and became an 
earnest advocate of the secret doctrine. One wintry 
evening in March, 1889, Mr. Judge attended a meet- 
ing of the New York Anthropological Society, and 
told the audience all about the spectral gentleman, 
Koot Hoomi. He said: 

"The parent society (Theosophical) was founded in 



WHAT IS THEOSOPHY? 241 

America by Madame Blavatsky, who gathered about 
her a few interested people and began the great work. 
They held a meeting to frame a constitution (1875), 
etc., but before anything had been accomplished a 
strangely foreign Hindoo, dressed in the peculiar garb 




FIG. 37. WILLIAM Q. JUDGE. 

[Reproduced by courtesy of the New York Herald.] 

of his country, came before them, and, leaving a pack- 
age, vanished, and no one knew whither he came or 
went. On opening the package they found the neces- 
sary forms of organization, rules, etc., which were 
adopted. The inference to be drawn was, that the 



242 MADAME BLAVATSKY. 

strange visitor was a Mahatma, interested in the foun- 
dation of the Society." 

And so Blavatskyism flourished, and the Society 
gathered in disciples from all quarters. Men without 
definite creeds are ever willing to embrace anything 
that savors of the mysterious, however absurd the ten- 
ets of the new doctrine may be. The objects of the 
Theosophical Society, as set forth in a number of 
Lucifer, the organ of the cult, published in July, 1890, 
are stated to be: 

"1. To form a nucleus of a Universal Brotherhood 
of Humanity without distinction of race, creed, sex, or 
color. 

"2. To promote the study of Aryan and other 
Eastern literatures, religions and sciences. 

"3. To investigate laws of Nature and the psychi- 
cal powers of man." 

There is nothing of cant or humbug about the above 
articles. A society founded for the prosecution of 
such researches seems laudable enough. Oriental 
scholars and scientists have been working in this field 
for many years. But the investigations, as conducted 
under the Blavatsky regime, have savored so of char- 



WHAT IS THEOSOPHY? 243 

latanism that many earnest, truth-seeking Theoso- 
phists have withdrawn from the Society. 

After seeing the Society well established, Madame 
Blavatsky went to India. Her career in that country 
was a checkered one. From this period dates the 
expose of the Mahatma miracles. The story reads 
like a romance by Marie Corelli. Let us begin at the 
beginning. The headquarters of the Society was first 
established at Bombay, thence removed to Madras and 
afterwards to Adyar. A certain M. and Mme. Cou- 
lomb, trusted friends of Madame Blavatsky, were 
made librarian and assistant corresponding secretary 
respectively of the Society, and took up their residence 
in the building known as the headquarters — a ramb- 
ling East Indian bungalow, such as figure in Rudyard 
Kipling's stories "of Oriental life. Marvellous phen- 
omena, of an occult nature, alleged to have taken place 
there, were attested by many Theosophists. Myster- 
ious, ghostly appearances of Mahatmas were seen, and 
messages were constantly received by supernatural 
means. One of the apartments of the bungalow was 
denominated the Occult Room, and in this room was 
a sort of cupboard against the wall, known as the 
Shrine. In this shrine the ghostly missives were re- 



244 MADAME BLAVATSKY. 

ceived and from it were sent. Skeptics were con- 
vinced, and occult lodges spread rapidly over India 
among the dreamy, marvel-loving natives. But af- 
fairs were not destined to sail smoothly. There came 
a rift within the lute — Madame Blavatsky quarreled 
with her trusted lieutenants, the Coulombs! In May, 
1884, M. and Mme. Coulomb were expelled from the 
Society by the General Council, during the absence of 
the High Priestess and Col. Olcott in Europe. The 
Coulombs, who had grown weary of a life of im- 
posture, or were actuated by the more ignoble motive 
of revenge, made a complete expose of the secret 
working of the Inner Brotherhood. They published 
portions of Madame Blavatsky's correspondence in 
the Madras Christian College Magazine, for Sep- 
tember and October, 1884; letters written to the Cou- 
lombs, directing them to prepare certain im- 
postures and letters written by the High Priest- 
ess, under the signature of Koot Hoomi, the 
mythical adept.* This correspondence unquestion- 
ably implicated the Sibyl in a conspiracy to fraudu- 
lently produce occult phenomena. She declared them 
to be, in whole, or in part, forgeries. At this juncture 



* Note— These letters were purchased from the Christian College 
Magazine by Dr. Elliot Coues, of Washington, D. C. 



WHAT IS THEOSOPHY? 2 4S 

the London Society for Psychical Research sent Mr. 
Richard Hodgson, B. A., scholar of St. John's College, 
Cambridge, England, to India to investigate the entire 
matter in the interest of science. 

He left England November, 1884, and remained in 
the East till April, 1885. During this period Blavat- 
skyism was sifted to the bottom. Mr. Hodgson's re- 
port covers several hundred pages, and proves con- 
clusively that the occult phenomena of Madame Bla- 
vatsky and her co-adjutors are unworthy of credence. 
In his volume he gives diagrams of the trap-doors and 
machinery of the shrine and the occult room, and fac- 
similes of Madame Blavatsky's handwriting, which 
proved to be identical with that of Koot Hoomi, or 
Cute Hoomi, as the critics dubbed him. He shows 
that the Coulombs had told the plain unvarnished 
truth so far as their disclosures went; and he stigma- 
tizes the Priestess of Isis in the following language: 

"1. She has been engaged in a long continued 
combination with other persons to produce by ordi- 
nary means a series of apparent marvels for the sup- 
port of the Theosophic movement. 

"2. That in particular the shrine at Adyar through 
which letters purporting to come from Mahatmas were 



246 MADAME ELAVATSKY. 

received, was elaborately arranged with a view to the 
secret insertion of letters and other objects through a 
sliding panel at the back, and regularly used for the 
purpose by Madame Blavatsky or her agents. 

"3. That there is consequently a very strong gen- 
eral presumption that all the marvellous narratives put 
forward in evidence of the existence of Mahatmas are 
to be explained as due either (a) to deliberate decep- 
tion carried out by or at the instigation of Madame 
Blavatsky, or (b) to spontaneous illusion or hallucina- 
tion or unconscious misrepresentation or invention on 
the part of the witnesses." 

The mysterious appearances of the ghostly Mahat- 
mas at the headquarters was shown, by Mr. Hodgson, 
to be the work of confederates, the cleverest among 
them being Madame Coulomb. Sliding panels, secret 
doors, and many disguises were the modus operandi of 
the occult phenomena. In regard to the letters and 
alleged precipitated writing, Mr. Hodgson says: 

"It has been alleged, indeed, that when Madame 
Blavatsky was at Madras, instantaneous replies to 
mental queries had been found in the shrine (at 
Adyar), that envelopes containing questions were re- 
turned absolutely intact to the senders, and that when 



WHAT IS THEOSOPHY? 247 

they were opened replies were found within in the 
handwriting of a Mahatma. After numerous inquir- 
ies, I found that in all cases I could hear of, the mental 
query was such as might easily have been anticipated 
by Madame Blavatsky; indeed, the query was whether 
the questioner would meet with success in his en- 
deavor to become a pupil of the Mahatma, and the an- 
swer was frequently of the indefinite and oracular sort. 
In some cases the envelope inserted in the Shrine was 
one which had been previously sent to headquarters 
for that purpose, so that the envelope might have been 
opened and the answer written therein before it was 
placed in the Shrine at all. Where sufficient care was 
taken in the preparation of the inquiry, either no spe- 
cific answer was given or the answer was delayed." 

A certain phenomenon, frequently mentioned by 
Theosophists as having occurred in Madame Blavat- 
sky's sitting-room, was the dropping of a letter from 
the ceiling, supposed to be a communication from some 
Mahatma. In all such cases conjuring was proved to 
have been used — the deus ex machina being either a 
silk thread or else a cunningly secreted trap door hid- 
den between the wooden beams of the bungalow ceil- 
ing, operated of course by a concealed confederate. 



248 MADAME BLAVATSKY. 

Madam Blavatsky's favorite method of impressing 
people with her occult powers was the almost imme- 
diate reception of letters from distant countries, in re- 
sponse to questions asked. These feats were the re- 
sult of carefully contrived plans, preconcerted weeks 
in advance. She would telegraph in cipher to one of 
her numerous correspondents, East Indian, for ex- 
ample, to write a letter in reply to a certain query, 
and post it at a particular date. Then she would cal- 
culate the arrival of the letter, often to a nicety. Her 
•ability as a conversationalist enabled her to- adroitly 
lead people into asking questions that would tally with 
the Mahatma messages. But sometimes she failed, 
and a ludicrous fiasco was the result. Mr. Hodgson's 
report contains accounts of many such mystic letters 
that would arrive by post from India in the nick of 
time, or too late for use. 

Among other remarkable things reported of the 
Madame was her power of producing photographs of 
people far away by a sort of spiritual photography, in- 
volving no other mechanical process than the slipping 
of a sheet of paper between the leaves of her blotting 
pad. 

When stories of this spirit-photography were rife 



WHAT IS THEOSOPHY? 249 

in London, a scientist published the following ex- 
planation of a method of making such Mahatma por- 
traits : 

"Has the English public never heard of 'Magic 
photography?' Just a few years ago small sheets of 
white paper were offered for sale which on being cov- 
ered with damp blotting paper developed an image as 
if by magic. The white sheets of paper seemed 
blanks. Really, however, they were photographs, not 
containing gold, which had been bleached by immers- 
ing them in a solution of mercuric chloride. The 
latter gives up part of its chlorine, and this chlorine 
bleaches the brown silver particles of which the pho^- 
tograph consists, by changing them to chloride of sil- 
ver. The mercuric chloride becomes mercurous 
chloride. This body is white, and therefore invisible 
on white paper. Now, several substances will color 
this white mercurous chloride black. Ammonia and 
hypo-sulphite of soda will do this. In the magic pho- 
tographs before mentioned the blotting paper con- 
tained hypo-sulphite of soda. Consequently when the 
alleged blank sheets of white note paper were placed 
between the sheets of blotting paper and slightly 
moistened, the hypo-sulphite of soda in the blotting 



250 MADAME BLAVATSKY. 

paper acted chemically on the mercurous chloride in 
the white note paper, and the picture appeared. As 
this was known in 1840 to Herschel, Blavatsky's mir- 
acle is nothing but a commonplace conjuring experi- 
ment." 

3. Madame Blavatsky's Confession, 

The individual to whom the world is most indebted 
for a critical analysis of Madame Blavatsky's char- 
acter and her claims as a producer of occult phenom- 
ena is Vsevolod S. Solovyoff, a Russian journalist and 
litterateur of considerable note. He has ruthlessly 
torn the veil from the Priestess of Isis in a remark- 
able book of revelations, entitled, "A Modern Priest- 
ess of Isis." In May, 1884, he was in Paris, engaged 
in studying occult literature, and was preparing to 
write a treatise on "the rare, but in my opinion, real 
manifestations of the imperfectly investigated spiritual 
powers of man." One day he read in the Matin 
that Madame Blavatsky had arrived in Paris, and he 
determined to meet her. Thanks to a friend in St. 
Petersburg, he obtained a letter of introduction to 
the famous Theosophist, and called on her a few days 
later, at her residence in the Rue Notre Dame des 



HER CONFESSION. 251 

Champs. His pen picture of the interview is graphic: 

"I found myself in a long, mean street on the left 
bank of the Seine, de V autre cote de Teau, as the Parisians 
say. The coachman stopped at the number I had told 
him. The house was unsightly enough to look at, 
and at the door there was not a single carriage. 

" 'My dear sir, you have let her slip ; she has left 
Paris,' I said to myself with vexation. 

"In answer to my inquiry the concierge showed me 
the way. I climbed a very, very dark staircase, rang, 
and a slovenly figure in an Oriental turban admitted 
me into a tiny dark lobby. 

"To my question, whether Madame Blavatsky 
would receive me, the slovenly figure replied with an 
'Entrez, monsieur' and vanished with my card, while 
I was left to wait in a small low room, poorly and in^ 
sufficiently furnished. 

"I had not long to wait. The door opened, and she 
was before me; a rather tall woman, though she pro- 
duced the impression of being short, on account of her 
unusual stoutness. Her great head seemed all the 
greater from her thick and very bright hair, touched 
with a scarcely perceptible gray, and very slightly 



252 MADAME BLAVATSKY. 

frizzed, by nature and not by art, as I subsequently 
convinced myself. 

"At the first moment her plain, old earthy-colored 
face struck me as repulsive; but she fixed on me the 
gaze of her great, rolling, pale blue eyes, and in these 
wonderful eyes, with their hidden power, all the rest 
was forgotten. 

"I remarked, however, that she was very strangely 
dressed, in a sort of black sacque, and that all the 
fingers of her small, soft, and as it were boneless 
hands, with their slender points and long nails, were 
covered with great jewelled rings." 

Madame Blavatsky received Solovyoff kindly, and 
they became excellent friends. She urged him to join 
the Theosophical Society, and he expressed himself 
as favorably impressed with the purposes of the or- 
ganization. During the interview she produced her 
astral bell "phenomenon." She excused herself to at- 
tend to some domestic duty, and on her return to the 
sitting-room, the phenomenon took place. Says So- 
lovyoff: "She made a sort of flourish with her hand. 
raised it upwards and suddenly, I heard distinctly, 
quite distinctly, somewhere above our heads, near the 



HER CONFESSION. 253 

ceiling, a very melodious sound like a little silver bell 
or an Aeolian harp. 

" 'What is the meaning of this?' I asked. 

" This means only that my master is here, although 
you and I cannot see him. He tells me that I may 
trust you, and am to do for you whatever I can. Vous 
etes sous sa protection, henceforth and forever.' 

"She looked me straight in the eyes, and caressed 
me with her glance and her kindly smile." 

This Mahatmic phenomenon ought to have abso- 
lutely convinced Solovyoff, but it did not. He asked 
himself the question: 

" 'Why was the sound of the silver bell not heard at 
once, but only after she had left the room and come 
back again?' " 

A few days after this event, the Russian journalist 
was regularly enrolled as a member of the Theosophi- 
cal Society, and began to study Madame Blavatsky 
instead of Oriental literature and occultism. He was 
introduced to Colonel Olcott, who showed him the 
turban that had been left at the New York headquar- 
ters by the astral Koot Hoomi. Solovyoff witnessed 
other "phenomena" in the presence of Madame Bla- 
vatsky, which did not impress him very favorably. 



254 MADAME BLAVATSKY. 

Finally, the High Priestess produced her chef d' 
oeuvre, the psychometric reading of a letter. Solovyorr 
was rather impressed with this feat and sent an ac- 
count of it to the Rebus, but subsequently came to 
the conclusion that trickery had entered into it. When 
the Coulomb exposures came, he did not see much of 
Madame Blavatsky. She was overwhelmed with let- 
ters and spent a considerable time anxiously travelling 
to and fro on Theosophical affairs. In August, 1885, 
she was at Wurzburg sick at heart and in body, at- 
tended by a diminutive Hindoo servant, Bavaji by 
name. She begged Solovyofr to visit her, promising 
to give him lessons in occultism. With a determina- 
tion to investigate the "phenomena," he went to the 
Bavarian watering place, and one morning called on 
Madame Blavatsky. He found her seated in a great 
arm chair: 

"At the opposite end of the table stood the dwarfish 
Bavaji, with a confused look in his dulled eyes. He 
was evidently incapable of meeting my gaze, and the 
fact certainly did not escape me. In front of Bavaji 
on the table were scattered several sheets of clean 
paper. Nothing of the sort had occurred before, so 



HER CONFESSION. 255 

my attention was the more aroused. In his hand was 
a great thick pencil. I began to have ideas. 

" 'Just look at the unfortunate man/ said Helena 
Petrovna suddenly, turning to me. 'He does not look 
himself at all ; he drives me to distraction'. . . Then 
she passed from Bavaji to the London Society for Psy- 
chical Research, and again tried to persuade me about 
the 'master.' Bavaji stood like a statue; he could take 
no part in our conversation, as he did not know a 
word of Russian. 

" 'But such incredulity as to the evidence of your 
own eyes, such obstinate infidelity as yours, is simply 
unpardonable. In fact, it is wicked!' exclaimed He- 
lena Petrovna. 

"I was walking about the room at the time, and did 
not take my eyes off Bavaji. I saw that he was keeping 
his eyes wide open, with a sort of contortion of his 
whole body, while his hand, armed with a great pen- 
cil, was carefully tracing some letters on a sheet of 
paper. 

'"Look; what is the matter with him?' exclaimed 
Madame Blavatsky. 

" 'Nothing particular,' I answered; 'he is writing in 
Russian.' 



256 MADAME BLAVATSKY. 

"I saw her whole face grow purple. She began to 
stir in her chair, with an obvious desire to get up and 
take the paper from him. But with her swollen and 
almost inflexible limbs, she could not do so with any 
speed. I made haste to seize the paper and saw on 
it a beautifully drawn Russian phrase. 

"Bavaji was to have written, in the Russian lan- 
guage with which he was not acquainted: 'Blessed 
are they that believe, as said the Great Adept.' He 
had learned his task well, and remembered correctly 
the form of all the letters, but he had omitted two in 
the word 'believe.' [The effect was precisely the same 
as if in English he had omitted the first two and last 
two letters of the word.] 

" 'Blessed are they that lie,' I read aloud, unable to 
control the laughter which shook me. That is the 
best thing I ever saw. Oh, Bavaji! you should have 
got your lesson up better for examination!' 

"The tiny Hindoo hid his face in his hands and 
rushed out of the room ; I heard his hysterical sobs in 
the distance. Madame Blavatsky sat with distorted 
features." 

As will be seen from the above, the Hindoo servant 
was one of the Madame's Mahatmas, and was caught 



HER CONFESSION. 257 

in the act of preparing a communication from a sage 
in the Himalayas, to Solovyoff. 

"After this abortive phenomena," remarks the Rus- 
sian journalist, "things marched faster, and I saw that 
I should soon be in a position to send very interesting 
additions to the report of the Psychical Society." . . 
"Every day when I came to see the Madame she used 
to try to do me a favor in the shape of some trifling 
'phenomenon,' but she never succeeded. Thus one 
day her famous 'silver bell' was heard, when suddenly 
something fell beside her on the ground. I hurried 
to pick it up — and found in my hands a pretty little 
piece of silver, delicately worked and strangely shaped. 
Helena Petrovna changed countenance, and snatched 
the object from me. I coughed significantly, smiled 
and turned the conversation to indifferent matters." 

On another occasion he was conversing with her 
about the "Theosophist," and "she mentioned the 
name of Subba Rao, a Hindoo, who had attained the 
highest degree of knowledge." She directed Mr. 
Solovyoff to open a drawer in her writing desk, and 
take from it a photograph of the adept. 

"I opened the drawer," says Solovyoff, "found the 
photograph and handed it to her— together with a 



258 MADAME BLAVATSKY. 

packet of Chinese envelopes (See Fig. 34), such as I 
well knew; they were the same in which the 'elect' used 
to receive the letters of the Mahatmas Morya and 
Koot Hoomi by 'astral post.' 

" 'Look at that, Helena Petrovna! I should advise 
you to hide this packet of the master's envelopes far- 
ther off. You are so terribly absent-minded and care- 
less.' 

"It was easy to imagine what this was to< her. I 
looked at her and was positively frightened; her face 
grew perfectly black. She tried in vain to speak; she 
could only writhe helplessly in her great arm-chair." 

Solovyoff with great adroitness gradually drew from 
her a confession. "What is one to do," said Madame 
Blavatsky, plaintively, "when in order to rule men it 
is necessary to deceive them; almost invariably the 
more simple, the more silly, and the more gross the 
phenomenon, the more likely it is to succeed." The 
Priestess of Isis broke down completely and acknowl- 
edged that her phenomena were not genuine ; the Koot 
Hoomi letters were written by herself and others in 
collusion with her; finally she exhibited to the journal- 
ist the apparatus for producing the "astral bell," and 
begged him to go into a co-partnership with her to 



HER CONFESSION. 2 Sg 

astonish the world. He refused! The next day she 
declared that a black magician had spoken through 
her mouth, and not herself; she was not responsible 
for what she had said. After this he had other inter- 
views with her; threats and promises; and lastly a 
most extraordinary letter, which was headed, "My 
Confession," and reads, in part, as follows: 

"Believe me, / have fallen because I have made up my 
mind to fall, or else to bring about a reaction by tell- 
ing all God's truth about myself, but without mercy on 
my enemies. On this I am firmly resolved, and from 
this day I shall begin to prepare myself in order to be 
ready. I will fly no more. Together with this letter, 
or a few hours later, I shall myself be in Paris, and 
then on to London. A Frenchman is ready, and a 
well-known journalist too, delighted to set about the 
work and to write at my dictation something short, 
but strong, and what is most important — a true history 
of my life. / shall not even attempt to defend, to justify 
myself. In this book I shall simply say: "In 1848, I, 
hating my husband, N. V. Blavatsky (it may have been 
wrong, but still such was the nature God gave me), 
left him, abandoned him — a virgin. (I shall produce 
documents and letters proving this, although he himself 



260 MADAME BLAVATSKY. 

is not such a swine as to deny it.) I loved one man deep- 
ly, but still more I loved occult science, believing in 
magic, wizards, etc. I wandered with him here and 
there, in Asia, in America, and in Europe. I met with 
So-and-so. (You may call him a wizard, what does it 
matter to him?) In 1858 I was in London; there 
came out some story about a child, not mine (there 
will follow medical evidence, from the faculty of Paris, 
and it is for this that I am going to Paris). One thing 
and another was said of me; that I was depraved, pos- 
sessed with a devil, etc. 

"I shall tell everything as I think fit, everything I did, 
for the twenty years and more, that I laughed at the 
qu'en dira-t-on, and covered up all traces of what I was 
really occupied in, i. e., the sciences occultes, for the 
sake of my family and relations who would at that time 
have cursed me. I will tell how from my eighteenth 
year I tried to get people to talk about me, and say 
about me that this man and that was my lover, and 
hundreds of them. I will tell, too, a great deal of 
which no one ever dreamed, and I will prove it. Then 
I will inform the world how suddenly my eyes were 
opened to all the horror of my moral suicide; how I 
was sent to America to try my psychological capabili- 



HER CONFESSION. 261 

ties ; how I collected a society there, and began to ex- 
piate my faults, and attempted to make men better and 
to sacrifice myself for their regeneration. / will name 
all the Theosophists who were brought into the right 
way, drunkards and rakes, who became almost saints, 
especially in India, and those who enlisted as Theoso- 
phists, and continued their former life, as though they 
were doing the work (and there are many of them) and 
yet were the first to join the pack of hounds that were 
hunting me down, and to bite me .... 

"No! The devils will save me in this last great hour. 
You did not calculate on the cool determination of 
despair, which zvas and has passed over. . . . And 
to this I have been brought by you. You have been 
the last straw which has broken the camel's back un- 
der its intolerably heavy burden. Now you are at 
liberty to conceal nothing. Repeat to all Paris what 
you have ever heard or know about me. I have al- 
ready written a letter to Sinnett forbidding him to pub- 
lish my memoirs at his own discretion. I myself will 
publish them with all the truth. ... It will be a 
Saturnalia of the moral depravity of mankind, this 
confession of mine, a worthy epilogue of my stormy 
life. . . . Let the psychist gentlemen, and who- 



262 MADAME BLAVATSKY. 

soever will, set on foot a new inquiry. Mohini and all 
the rest, even India, are dead for me. I thirst for one 
thing only, that the world may know all the reality, 
all the truth, and learn the lesson. And then death, 
kindest of all. H. Blavatsky. 

"You may print this letter if you will, even in Russia. 
It is all the same now." 

This remarkable effusion may be the result of a 
fever-disordered brain, it may be, as she says, the 
"God's truth;" at any rate it bears the ear-marks of 
the Blavatsky style about it. The disciples of the 
High Priestess of Isis have bitterly denounced So- 
Iovyoff and the revelations contained in his book. 
They brand him as a coward for not having published 
his diatribe during the lifetime of the Madame, when 
she was able to defend herself. However that may be, 
Solovyoff's exposures tally very well with the mass 
of corroborative evidence adduced by Hodgson, 
Coues, Coleman, and a host of writers, who began 
their attacks during the earthly pilgrimage of the 
great Sibyl. 

On receipt of this letter, Feb- 16, 1886, Solovyoff 
resigned from the Theosophical Society. He de- 
nounced the High Priestess to the Paris Theosophists, 



HER CONFESSION. 263 

and the Blavatsky lodges in that city were disrupted 
in consequence of the exposures. This seems to be 
a convincing proof of the genuineness of his revela- 
tions. After the Solovyoff incident, Madame Blavat- 
sky went into retirement for a while. Eventually she 
appeared in London as full of enthusiasm as ever and 
added to her list of converts the Countess of Caithness 
and Mrs. Annie Besant, the famous socialist and au- 
thoress. 

Finally came the last act of this strange life-drama. 
That messenger of death, whom the mystical Persian 
singer, Omar Khayyam, calls "The Angel of the 
Darker Drink," held to her lips the inevitable chalice 
of Mortality; then the "golden cord was loosened and 
the silver bowl was broken," and she passed into the 
land of shadows. It was in London, May 8, 1891, that 
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky ended one of the strangest 
careers on record. She died calmly and peacefully in 
her bed, surrounded by her friends, and after her de- 
mise her body was cremated by her disciples, with oc- 
cult rites and ceremonies. All that remained of her — 
a few handfuls of powdery white ashes — was gathered 
together, and divided into three equal parts. One 
portion was buried in London, one sent to New York 



264 MADAME BLAVATSKY. 

City, and the third to Adyar, near Madras, India. The 
New World, the Old World, and the still Older World 
of the East were honored with the ashes of H. P. B. 
Three civilizations, three heaps of ashes, three initials 
— mystic number from time immemorial, celebrated 
symbol of Divinity known to, and revered by, Ca- 
balists, Gnostics, Rosicrucians, and Theosophists. 

Mr. J. Ransom Bridges, who had considerable cor- 
respondence with the High Priestess from 1888 until 
her death, says (Arena, April, 1895): "Whatever may 
be the ultimate verdict upon the life and work of this 
woman, her place in history will be unique. There 
was a Titanic display of strength in everything she did. 
The storms that raged in her were cyclones. Those 
exposed to them often felt with Solovyoff that if there 
were holy and sage Mahatmas, they could not remain 
holy and sage, and have anything to do with Helena 
Petrovna Blavatsky. The 'confession' she wrote 
rings with the mingled curses and mad laughter of a 
crazy mariner scuttling his own ship. Yet she could 
be as tender and sympathetic as any mother. Her 
mastery of some natures seemed complete; and these 
people she worked like galley-slaves in the Theosoph- 
ical tread mill of her propaganda movement. 



HER WRITINGS. 265 

"To these disciples she was the greatest thaumatur- 
gist known to the world since the days of the Christ. 
The attacks upon her, the Coulomb and Solovyoff ex- 
posures, the continual newspaper calumnies they look 
upon as a gigantic conspiracy brewed by all the rules 
of the black art to counteract, and, if possible, to des- 
troy the effect of her work and mission." 

"Requiescat in Pace," O Priestess of Isis, until 
your next incarnation on Earth! The twentieth cen- 
tury will doubtless have need of your services! For 
the delectation of the curious let me add: the English 
resting place of Madame Blavatsky is designed after 
the model of an Oriental "dagoba," or tomb; the 
American shrine is a marble niche in the wall of the 
Theosophical headquarters, No. 144 Madison avenue, 
the ashes reposing in a vase standing in the niche be- 
hind a hermetically-sealed glass window. The Orien- 
tal shrine in Adyar is a tomb modelled after the world- 
famous Taj Mahal, and is built of pink sandstone, sur- 
mounted by a small Benares copper spire. 

4, The Writings of Madame Blavatsky, 

Madame Blavatsky is known to the reading world 
as the writer of two voluminous works of a philosophi- 



266 MADAME BLAVATSKY. 

cal or mystical character, explanatory of the Esoteric 

Doctrine, viz., "Isis Unveiled," published in 1877, and 
the "Secret Doctrine," published in 1888. In the 
composition of these works she claimed that she was 
assisted by the Mahatmas who visited her apartments 
when she was asleep, and wrote portions of the manu- 
scripts with their astral hands while their natural 
bodies reposed entranced in Thibetan Lamaseries. 
These fictions were fostered by prominent members 
of the Theosophical Society, and believed by many 
credulous persons. "Isis Unveiled" is a hodge-podge 
of absurdities, pseudo-science, mythology and folk- 
lore, arranged in helter-skelter fashion, with an utter 
disregard of logical sequence. The fact was that 
Madame Blavatsky had a very imperfect knowledge 
of English, and this may account for the strange mis- 
takes in which the volume abounds, despite the aid of 
the ghostly Mahatmas. William Emmette Coleman, 
of San Francisco, has made an exhaustive analysis 
of the Madame's writings, and declares that "Isis," 
and the "Secret Doctrine" are full of plagiarisms. In 
"Isis" he discovered "some 2,000 passages copied from 
other books without proper credit." Speaking of the 
"Secret Doctrine," the master key to the wisdom of 



HER WRITINGS. 267 

the ages, he says : "The 'Secret Doctrine' is ostensibly 
based upon certain stanzas, claimed to have been trans- 
lated by Madame Blavatsky from the 'Book of Dzyan' 
— the oldest book in the world, written in a lan- 
guage unknown to philology. The 'Book of Dzyan' 
was the work of Madame Blavatsky — a compilation, in 
her own language, from a variety of sources, embrac- 
ing the general principles of the doctrines and dogmas 
taught in the 'Secret Doctrine.' I find in this 'oldest 
book in the world' statements copied from nineteenth 
century books, and in the usual blundering manner of 
Madame Blavatsky. Letters and other writings of the 
adepts are found in the 'Secret Doctrine.' In these 
Mahatmic productions I have traced various plagiar- 
ized passages from Wilson's 'Vishnu Purana,' and 
Winchell's 'World Life' — of like character to those in 
Madame Blavatsky 's acknowledged writings. * * * 
A specimen of the wholesale plagiarisms in this book 
appears in vol. II., pp. 599-603. Nearly the whole of 
four pages was copied from Oliver's 'Pythagorean 
Triangle,' while only a few lines were credited to that 
work." 

Those who are interested in Coleman's expose" are 
referred to Appendix C, of Solovyoffs book, "A Mod- 



268 MADAME BLAVATSKY. 

era Priestess of Isis." The title of this appendix is 
"The Sources of Madame Blavatsky's Writings." Mr. 
Coleman is at present engaged in the preparation of 
an elaborate work on the subject, which will in addi- 
tion contain an "expose of Theosophy as a whole." 
It will no doubt prove of interest to students of oc- 
cultism. 

5. Life and Death of a Famous Theosophist. 

The funeral of Baron de Palm, conducted according 
to Theosophical rites, is an interesting chapter in the 
history of the Society, and worth relating. 

Joseph Henry Louis Charles, Baron de Palm, Grand 
Cross Commander of the Sovereign Order of the Holy 
Sepulchre at Jerusalem, and knight of various orders, 
was born at Augsburg, May 10, 1809. He came to 
the United States rather late in life, drifted West with- 
out any settled occupation, and lived from hand to 
mouth in various Western cities. Finally he located 
in New York City, broken in health and spirit. He 
was a man of considerable culture and interested to a 
greater or less extent in the phenomena of modern 
Spiritualism. A letter of introduction from the editor 
of the Religio-Philosophical Journal, of Chicago, 



A FAMOUS THEOSOPHIST. 269 

made him acquainted with Col. Olcott, who intro- 
duced him to prominent members of the Theosophical 
Society. He was elected a member of the Society, 
eventually becoming a member of the Council. In 
the year 1875 he died, leaving behind an earnest re- 
quest that Col. Olcott "should perform the last offices 
in a fashion that would illustrate the Eastern notions 
of death and immortality."* He also left directions 
that his body should be cremated. A great deal of 
excitement was caused over this affair in orthodox re- 
ligious circles, and public curiosity was aroused to the 
highest pitch. The funeral service was, as Madame 
Blavatsky described it in a letter to a European corre- 
spondent, "pagan, almost antique pagan." The cere- 
mony was held in the great hall of the Masonic Tem- 
ple, corner of Twenty-third and Sixth avenue. Tick- 
ets of admission were issued of decidedly occult shape 
—triangular; some black, printed in silver; others 
drab, printed in black. A crowd of 2,000 people as- 
sembled to witness the obsequies. On the stage was 
a triangular altar, with a symbolical fire burning upon 
it. The coffin stood near by, covered with the orders 
of knighthood of the deceased. A splendid choir ren- 



* "Old Diary Reaves"— Olcott. 



270 MADAME BLAVATSKY. 

dered several Orphic hymns composed for the oc- 
casion, with organ accompaniment, and Col. Olcott, 
as Hierophant, made an invocation or mantram "to the 
Soul of the World whose breath gives and withdraws 
the form of everything." Death is always solemn, 
and no subject for levity, yet I must not leave out of 
this chronicle the unique burlesque programme of 
Baron de Palm's funeral, published by the New York 
World, the day before the event. Says the World: 
"The procession will move in the following order: 
"Col. Olcott as high priest, wearing a leopard skin 
and carrying a roll of papyrus (brown card board). 
"Mr. Cobb, as sacred scribe, with style and tablet. 
"Egyptian mummy-case, borne upon a sledge 
drawn by four oxen. (Also a slave bearing a pot of 
lubricating oil.) 

"Madame Blavatsky as chief mourner and also 
bearer of the sistrum. (She will wear a long linen 
garment extending to the feet, and a girdle about the 
waist.) 

"Colored boy carrying three Abyssinian geese 
(Philadelphia chickens) to place upon the bier. 

"Vice-President Felt, with the eye of Osiris painted 



A FAMOUS THEOSOPHIST. 271 

on his left breast, and carrying an asp (bought at a 

toy store on Eighth avenue.) 

"Dr. Pancoast, singing an ancient Theban dirge: 

" 'Isis and Nepthys, beginning and end : 
One more victim to Amenti we send. 
Pay we the fare, and let us not tarry. 
Cross the Styx by the Roosevelt street ferry.' " 

"Slaves in mourning gowns, carrying the offerings 
and libations, to consist of early potatoes, asparagus, 
roast beef, French pan-cakes, bock-beer, and New 
Jersey cider. 

"Treasurer Newton, as chief of the musicians, play- 
ing the double pipe. 

"Other musicians performing on eight-stringed 
harps, tom-toms, etc. 

"Boys carrying a large lotus (sunflower). 
"Librarian Fassit, who will alternate with music by 
repeating the lines beginning: 

" 'Here Horus comes, I see the boat. 
Friends, stay your flowing tears ; 
The soul of man goes through a goat 
In just 3,000 years.' 

"At the temple the ceremony will be short and sim- 
ple. The oxen will be left standing on the sidewalk, 
with a boy near by to prevent them goring the passers- 
bv. Besides the Theurgic hymn, printed above in 



272 MADAME BLAVATSKY. 

full, the Coptic National anthem will be sung, trans- 
lated and adapted to the occasion as follows: 

"Sitting Cynocephalus up in a tree, 

I see you, and you see me. 

River full of crocodile, see his long snout ! 

Hoist up the shadoof and pull him right out." 

6. The Mantle of Madame Blavatsky. 

After Madame Blavatsky's death, Mrs. Annie Be- 
sant assumed the leadership of the Theosophical So- 
ciety, and wore upon her finger a ring that belonged 
to the High Priestess: a ring with a green stone 
flecked with veins of blood red, upon the surface of 
which was engraved the interlaced triangles within a 
circle, with the Indian motto, Sat (Life), the symbol oi 
Theosophy. It was given to Madame Blavatsky by 
her Indian teacher, says Mrs. Besant, and is very mag- 
netic. The High Priestess on her deathbed pre- 
sented the mystic signet to her successor, and left her 
in addition many valuable books and manuscripts. 
The Theosophical Society now numbers its adherents 
by the thousands and has its lodges scattered over 
the United States, France, England and India. At 
the World's Columbian Exposition it was well repre- 
sented in the Great Parliament of Religions, by Annie 
Besant, William Q. Judge, of the American branch, 



HER SUCCESSORS. 



273 




FIG, 38. PORTRAIT OF MRS. ANNIE BESAHT. 



274 MADAME BLAVATSKY. 

and Prof. Chakravatir, a High Caste Brahmin of 
India. 

Mrs. Besant, in an interview published in the New 
York World, Dec. 11, 1892, made the following state- 
ment concerning Madame Blavatsky's peculiar 
powers : 

"One time she was trying to explain to me the con- 
trol of the mind over certain currents in the ether 
about us, and to illustrate she made some little taps 
come on my own head. They were accompanied by 
the sensation one experiences on touching an electric 
battery. I have frequently seen her draw things to 
her simply by her will, without touching them. In- 
deed, she would often check herself when strangers 
were about. It was natural for her, when she wanted 
a book that was on the table, to simply draw it to her 
by her power of mind, as it would be for you to reach 
out your hand to pick it up. And so, as I say, she 
often had to check herself, for she was decidedly ad- 
verse to making a show of her power. In fact, that is 
contrary to the law of the brotherhood to which she 
belonged. This law forbids them to make use of their 
power except as an instruction to their pupils or as an 
aid to the spreading of the truth. An adept may 



HER SUCCESSORS. 275 

never use his knowledge for his personal advantage. 
He may be starving, and despite his ability to ma- 
terialize banquets he may not supply himself with a 
crust of bread. This is what is meant in the Gospel 
when it says: 'He saved others, Himself He cannot 
save.' 

"One time she had written an article and as usual 
she gave me her manuscript to look over. 

"Sometimes she wrote very good grammatic English 
and again she wrote very slovenly English. So she 
always had me go over her manuscript. In reading 
this particular one I found a long quotation of some 
twenty or thirty lines. When I finished it I went to 
her and said: 'Where in the world did you get that 
quotation?' 

" 'I got it from an Indian newspaper of — / naming 
the date. 

" 'But,' I said, 'that paper cannot be in this country 
yet! How did you get hold of it?' 

"'Oh, I got it, dear/ she said, with a little laugh; 
'that's enough.' 

"Of course I understood then. When the time 
came for the paper to arrive, I thought I would verify 
her quotation, so I asked her for the name, the date 



276 MADAME BLAVATSKY. 

of the issue and the page on which the quotation 
would be found. She told me, giving me, we will say, 
45 as the number of the page. I went to the agent, 
looked up the paper and there was no such quotation 
on page 45. Then I remembered that things seen in 
the astral light are reversed, so I turned the number 
around, looked on page 54 and there was the quota- 
tion. When I went home I told her that it was all 
right, but that she had given me the wrong page. 

" 'Very likely,' she said. 'Someone came in just as 
I was finishing it, and I may have forgotten to reverse 
the number.' 

"You see, anything seen in the astral light is re- 
versed, as if you saw it in a mirror, while anything 
seen clairvoyantly is straight." 

The elevation of Mrs. Besant to the High Priestess- 
ship of the Theosophical Society was in accord with 
the spirit of the age — an acknowledgment of the Eter- 
nal Feminine; but it did not bring repose to the or- 
ganization. William Q. Judge, of the American 
branch, began dabbling, it is claimed, in Mahatma 
messages on his own account, and charges were made 
against him by Mrs. Besant. A bitter warfare was 
waged in Theosophical journals, and finally the Amer- 



HER SUCCESSORS. 277 

ican branch of the general society seceded, and or- 
ganized itself into the American Theosophical Society. 
Judge was made life-president and held the post until 
his death, in New York City, March 21st, 1896. His 
body was cremated and the ashes sealed in an urn, 
which was deposited in the Society's rooms, No. 144 
Madison avenue. 

Five weeks after the death of Judge, the Theosophi- 
cal Society held its annual conclave in New York City, 
and elected E. T. Hargrove as the presiding genius of 
esoteric wisdom in the United States. It was origin- 
ally intended to hold this convention in Chicago, but 
the change was made for a peculiar reason. As the 
press reported the circumstance, "it was the result of 
a request by a mysterious adept whose existence had 
been unsuspected, and who made known his wish in 
a communication to the executive committee." It 
seems that the Theosophical Society is composed of 
two bodies, the exoteric and the esoteric. The first 
holds open meetings for the discussion of ethical and 
Theosophical subjects, and the second meets privately, 
being composed of a secret body of adepts, learned in 
occultism and possessing remarkable spiritual powers. 
The chief of the secret order is appointed by the Ma- 



278 MADAME BLAVATSKY. 

hatmas, on account, it is claimed, of his or her occult 
development. Madame Blavatsky was the High 
Priestess in this inner temple during her lifetime, and 
was succeeded by Hierophant W. Q. Judge. When 
Judge died, it seems there was no one thoroughly 
qualified to take his place as the head of the esoteric 
branch, until an examination was made of his papers. 
Then came a surprise. Judge had named as his suc- 
cessor a certain obscure individual whom he claimed 
to be a great adept, requesting that the name be kept 
a profound secret for a specified time. In obedience 
to this injunction, the Great Unknown was elected as 
chief of the Inner Brother-and-Sisterhood. All of this 
made interesting copy for the New York journalists, 
and columns were printed about the affair. Another 
surprise came when the convention of exoterics ("hys- 
terics," as some of the papers called them) subscribed 
$25,000 for the founding of an occult temple in this 
country. But the greatest surprise of all was a Theo- 
sophical wedding. The De Palm funeral fades away 
into utter insignificance beside this mystic marriage. 
The contracting parties were Claude Falls Wright, 
formerly secretary to Madame Blavatsky, and Mary 
C. L. Leonard, daughter of Anna Byford Leonard, 



HER SUCCESSORS. 279 

one of the best known Theosophists in the West. The 
ceremony was performed at Aryan Hall, No. 144 Mad- 
ison avenue, N. Y., in the presence of the occult body. 
Outsiders were not admitted. However, public cur- 
iosity was partly gratified by sundry crumbs of in- 
formation thrown out by the Theosophical press bu- 
reau. 

The young couple stood beneath a seven-pointed 
star, made of electric light globes, and plighted their 
troth amid clouds of odoriferous incense. Then fol- 
lowed weird chantings and music by an occult orches- 
tra composed of violins and violoncellos. The un- 
known adept presided over the affair, as special envoy 
of the Mahatmas. He was enveloped from head to 
foot in a thick white veil, said the papers. 

Mr. Wright and his bride-elect declared solemnly 
that they remembered many of their former incarna- 
tions; their marriage had really taken place in Egypt, 
5,000 years ago in cne of the mysterious temples of 
that strange country, and the ceremony had been per- 
formed by the priests of Isis. Yes, they remembered it 
all! It seemed but as yesterday! They recalled with 
vividness the scene: their march up the avenue of 
monoliths; the lotus flowers strewn in their path by 



280 MADAME BLAVATSKY. 

rosy children; the intoxicating perfume of the incense, 
burned in bronze braziers by shaven-headed priests; 
the hieroglyphics, emblematical of life, death and res- 
urrection, painted upon the temple walls; the Hiero- 
phant in his gorgeous vestments. Oh, what a dream 
of Old World splendor and beauty! 

Before many months had passed, the awful secret of 
the Veiled Adept's identity was revealed. The Great 
Unknown turned out to be a she instead of a he adept 
— a certain Mrs. Katherine Alice Tingley, of New 
York City. The reporters began ringing the front 
door bell of the adept's house in the vain hope of ob- 
taining an interview, but the newly-hatched Sphinx 
turned a deaf ear to their entreaties. The time was 
not yet ripe for revelations. Her friends, however, 
rushed into print, and told the most marvellous stories 
of her mediumship. 

W. T. Stead, the English journalist and student of 
psychical research, reviewing the Theosophical con- 
vention and its outcome, says (Borderland, July, 1896, 
p. 306) : "The Judgeite seceders from the Theosophi- 
cal Society held their annual convention in New York, 
April 26th to 27th. They have elected a young man, 
Mr. Ernest T. Hargrove, as their president. A for- 



HER SUCCESSORS. 281 

mer spiritual medium and clairvoyant, by name Kath- 
erine Alice Tingley, who claims to have been bosom 
friends with H. P. B. 1200 years B. C, when both 
were incarnated in Egypt, is, however, the grand Pan- 
jandrum of the cause. Her first husband was a de- 
tective, her second is a clerk in the White Lead Com- 
pany's office in Brooklyn. 

"According to Mr. Hargrove she is — 'The new 
adept; she was appointed by Mr. Judge, and we are 
going to sustain her, as we sustained him, for we 
know her important connection in Egypt, Mexico and 
Europe.' " 

In the spring of 1896, Mrs. Tingley, accompanied 
by a number of prominent occultists, started on a cru- 
sade through the world to bring the truths of Theoso- 
phy to the toiling millions. The crusaders before 
their departure were presented with a purple silk ban- 
ner, bearing the legend: "Truth, Light, Liberation for 
Discouraged Humanity." The New York Herald 
(Aug. 16, 1896) says of this crusade: 

"When Mrs. Tingley and the other crusaders left 
this country nothing had been heard of the claim of 
the reincarnated Blavatsky. Now, however, this 
idea is boldly advanced in England by the American 



282 MADAME BLAVATSKY. 

branch of the society there, and in America by Bur- 
cham Harding, the acting head of the society in this 
country. When Mr. Harding was seen at the Theoso- 
phical headquarters, he said: 

" 'Yes, Mme. Blavatsky is reincarnated in Mrs. 
Tingley. She has not only been recognized by my- 
self and other members of the American branch of the 
Theosophical Society, who knew H. P. B. in her for- 
mer life, but the striking physical and facial resem- 
blance has also been noted by members of the English 
branch.' 

"But this recognition by the English members of 
the society does not seem to be as strong as Mr. Hard- 
ing would seem to have it understood. In fact, there 
are a number of members of that branch who boldly 
declare that Mrs. Tingley is an impostor. One of 
them, within the last week, addressing the English 
members on the subject, claimed that Mme. Blavatsky 
had foreseen that such an impostor would arise. He 
said: 

" 'When Mme. Blavatsky lived in her body among 
us, she declared to all her disciples that, in her next 
reincarnation, she would inhabit the body of an East- 
ern man, and she warned them to be on their guard 



HER SUCCESSORS. 283 

against any assertion made by mediums or others that 
they were controlled by her. Whatever H. P. B. 
lacked, she never wanted emphasis, and no one who 
knew anything of the founder of the Theosophical 
Society was left in any doubt as to her views upon this 
question. She declared that if any persons, after her 
death, should claim that she was speaking through 
them, her friends might be quite sure that it was a lie. 
Imagine, then, the feelings of H. P. B.'s disciples on 
being presented with an American clairvoyant me- 
dium, in the shape of Mrs. Tingley, who is reported 
to claim that H. P. B. is reincarnated in her.' 

"The American branch of the society is not at all 
disturbed by this charge of fraud by the English 
branch. In connection with it Mr. Harding says: 

" Tt is true that the American branch of the Theo- 
sophical Society has seceded from the English branch, 
but as Mme. Blavatsky, the founder, was in reality an 
American, it can be understood why we consider our- 
selves the parent society.' 

"Of the one letter which Mrs. Tingley has sent to 
America since the arrival of the crusaders, the Eng- 
lish Theosophists are a unit in the expression of opin- 
ion that it illustrated, as did her speech in Queen's 



284 MADAME BLAVATSKY. 

Hall, merely 'unmeaning platitudes and prophecies.' 
But the American members are quite as loud in their 
expressions that the English members are trying to 
win the sympathies of the public, and that the words 
are really understood by the initiate. 

"The letter reads: 'In thanking you for the many 
kind letters addressed to me as Katherme Tingley, as 
well as by other names that would not be understood 
by the general public, I should like to say a few words 
as to the future and its possibilities. Many of you are 
destined to take an active part in the work that the 
future will make manifest, and it is well to press on- 
ward with a clear knowledge of the path to be trodden 
and with a clear vision of the goal to be reached. 

" The path to be trodden is both exterior and inter- 
ior, and in order to reach the goal it is necessary to 
tread these paths with strength, courage, faith and the 
essence of them all, which is wisdom. 

" 'For these two paths, which fundamentally are 
one, like every duality in nature, are winding paths, 
and now lead through sunlight, then through deepest 
shade. During the last few years the large majority 
of students have been rounding a curve in the paths 
of both inner and outer work, and this wearied many. 



HER SUCCESSORS. 285 

But those who persevered and faltered not will soon 
reap their reward. 

" The present is pregnant with the promise of the 
near future, and that future is brighter than could be 




FIG. 39. PORTRAIT OF MRS. TINGLEY. 

[Reproduced by courtesy of the New York Herald^ 

believed by those who have so recently been immersed 
in the shadows that are inevitable in cyclic progress. 
Can words describe it? I think not. But if you will 



286 MADAME BLAVATSKY. 

think of the past twenty years of ploughing and sow- 
ing and will keep in your mind the tremendous 
force that has been scattered broadcast throughout 
the world, you must surely see that the hour for reap- 
ing is near at hand, if it has not already come." 

The invasion of English territory by the American 
crusaders was resented by the British Theosophists. 
The advocates of universal brotherhood waged bitter 
warfare against each other in the newspapers and 
periodicals. It gradually resolved itself into a strug- 
gle for supremacy between the two rival claimants for 
the mantle of Madame Blavatsky, Mrs. Annie Besant 
and Mrs. Tingley. Each Pythoness ascended her sa- 
cred tripod and hysterically denounced the other as an 
usurper, and false prophetess. Annie Besant sought 
to disprove the idea of Madame Blavatsky having 
re-incarnated herself in the body of Mrs. Tingley. She 
claimed that the late High Priestess had taken up her 
earthly pilgrimage again in the person of a little Hindoo 
boy, who lived somewhere on the banks of the Ganges. 
The puzzling problem was this: If Mrs. Tingley was 
Mme. Blavatsky, where was Mrs. Tingley? Oedipus 
would have gone mad trying to solve this Sphinx 
riddle. 



THE THEOSOPHICAL TEMPLE. 287 

The crusade finished, Mrs. Tingley, with her purple 
banner returned to New York, where she was royally 
welcomed by her followers. In the wake of the Amer- 
ican adept came the irrepressible Annie Besant, ac- 
companied by a sister Theosophist, the Countess Con- 
stance Wachmeister. Mrs. Besant, garbed in a white 
linen robe of Hindoo pattern, lectured on occult sub- 
jects to crowded houses in the principal cities of the 
East and West. In the numerous interviews accord- 
ed her by the press, she ridiculed the Blavatsky- 
Tingley re-incarnation theory. By kind permission 
of the New York Herald, I reproduce a portrait of 
Mrs. Tingley. The reader will find it interesting to 
compare this sketch with the photograph of Madame 
Blavatsky given in this book. He will notice at 
once how much the two occulists do resemble each 
other; both are grossly fat, puffy of face, with heavy- 
lidded eyes and rather thick lips. 

7. The Tlieosopkical Temple. 

If all the dreams of the Theosophical Society are 
fulfilled we shall see, at no distant date, in the state of 
California, a sombre and mysterious building, fash- 
ioned after an Egyptian temple, its pillars covered 
with hieroglyphic symbols, and its ponderous pylons 



288 MADAME BLAVATSKY. 

flanking the gloomy entrance. Twin obelisks will 
stand guard at the gateway and huge bronze sphinxes 
stare the tourist out of countenance. The Theosophi- 
cal temple will be constructed "upon certain myster- 
ious principles, and the numbers 7 and 13 will play a 
prominent part in connection with the dimensions of 
the rooms and the steps of the stairways." The Hier- 
ophants of occultism will assemble here, weird initia- 
tions like those described in Moore's "Epicurean" will 
take place, and the doctrines of Hindoo pantheism will 
be expounded to the Faithful. The revival of the 
Egyptian mysteries seems to be one of the objects 
aimed at in the establishment of this mystical college. 
Just what the Egyptian Mysteries were is a mooted 
question among Egyptologists. But this does not 
bother the modern adept. 

Mr. Bucham Harding, the leading exponent of 
Theosophy mentioned above, says that within the 
temple the neophyte will be brought face to face with 
his own soul. "By what means cannot be revealed; 
but I may say that the object of initiation will be to 
raise the consciousness of the pupil to a plane where 
he will see and know his own divine soul and con- 
sciously communicate with it. Once gained, this 



THE THEOSOPHICAL TEMPLE. 289 

power is never lost. From this it can be seen that oc- 
cultism is not so unreal as many think, and that the 
existence of soul is susceptible of actual demonstra- 
tion. No one will be received into the mysteries until, 
by means of a long and severe probation, he has 
proved nobility of character. Only persons having 
Theosophical training will be eligible, but as any be- 
liever in brotherhood may become a Theosophist, all 
earnest truthseekers will have an opportunity of ad- 
mission. 

"The probation will be sufficiently severe to deter 
persons seeking to gratify curiosity from trying to 
enter. No trifler could stand the test. There will be 
a number of degrees. Extremely few will be able to 
enter the highest, as eligibility to it requires eradica- 
tion of every human fault and weakness. Those 
strong enough to pass through this become adepts." 

The Masonic Fraternity, with its 33d degree and 
its elaborate initiations, will have to look to its laurels, 
as soon as the Theosophical College of Mystery is in 
good running order. Everyone loves mysteries, espe- 
cially when they are of the Egyptian kind. Caglios- 
tro, the High Priest of Humbug, knew this when he 
evolved the Egyptian Rite of Masonry, in the eight- 



290 MADAME BLAVATSKY. 

eenth century. Speaking of Freemasonry, it is inter- 
esting to note the fact, as stated by Colonel Olcott in 
"Old Diary Leaves," that Madame Blavatsky and her 
coadjutors once seriously debated the question as to 
the advisability of engrafting the Theosophical So- 
ciety on the Masonic fraternity, as a sort of higher de- 
gree, — Masonry representing the lesser mysteries, 
modern Theosophy the greater mysteries. But little 
encouragement was given to the Priestess of Isis by 
eminent Freemasons, for Masonry has always been the 
advocate of theistic doctrines, and opposed to the pan- 
theistic cult. At another time, the leaders of Theoso- 
phy talked of imitating Masonry by having degrees, 
an elaborate ritual, etc.; also pass words, signs and 
grips, in order that "one occult brother might know 
another in the darkness as well as in the astral light." 
This, however, was abandoned. The founding of the 
Temple of Magic and Mystery in this country, with 
ceremonies of initiation, etc., seems to me to be a 
palingenesis of Mme. Blavatsky's ideas on the subject 
of occult Masonry. 

8. Conclusions. 
The temple of modern Theosophy, the foundation of 
which was laid by Madame Blavatsky, rests upon the 



CONCLUSIONS. 291 

truth of the Mahatma stories. Disbelieve these, and 
the entire structure falls to the ground like a house of 
cards. After the numerous exposures, recorded in the 
preceding chapters, it is difficult to place any reliance 
in the accounts of Mahatmic miracles. There may, or 
may not, be sages in the East, acquainted with spirit- 
ual laws of being, but that these masters, or adepts, 
used Madame Blavatsky as a medium to announce 
certain esoteric doctrines to the Western world, is ex- 
ceedingly dubious. 

The first work of any literary pretensions to call 
attention to Theosophy was Sinnett's "Esoteric Bud- 
dhism." Of that production, William Emmette Cole- 
man says: 

" 'Esoteric Buddhism/ by A. P. Sinnett, was based 
upon statements contained in letters received by Mr. 
Sinnett and Mr. A. O. Hume, through Madame Bla- 
vatsky, purporting to be written by the Mahatmas 
Koot Hoomi and Morya — principally the former. Mr. 
Richard Hodgson has kindly lent me a considerable 
number of the original letters of the Mahatmas that 
leading to the production of 'Esoteric Buddhism.' I find 
in them overwhelming evidence that all of them were 
written by Madame Blavatsky. In these letters are a 



292 MADAME BLAVATSKY. 

number of extracts from Buddhist Books, alleged to 
be translations from the originals by the Mahatmic 
writers themselves. These letters claim for the adepts 
a knowledge of Sanskrit, Thibetan, Pali and Chinese. 
I have traced to its source each quotation from the 
Buddhist Scriptures in the letters, and they were all 
copied from current English translations, including 
even the notes and explanations of the English trans- 
lators. They were principally copied from Beal's 'Ca- 
tena of Buddhist Scriptures from the Chinese.' In 
other places where the 'adept' is using his own lan- 
guage in explanation of Buddhistic terms and ideas, 
I find that his presumed original language was copied 
nearly word for word from Rhys Davids' 'Buddhism,' 
and other books. I have traced every Buddhistic idea 
in these letters and in 'Esoteric Buddhism,' and every 
Buddhistic term, such as Devachan, Avitchi, etc., to 
the books whence Helena Petrovna Blavatsky derived 
them. Although said to be proficient in the knowl- 
edge of Thibetan and Sanskrit the words and terms in 
these languages in the letters of the adepts were nearly 
all used in a ludicrously erroneous and absurd manner. 
The writer of those letters was an ignoramus in San- 
skrit and Thibetan; and the mistakes and blunders in 



CONCLUSIONS. 293 

them, in these languages, are in exact accordance with 
the known ignorance of Madame Blavatsky concern- 
ing these languages. 'Esoteric Buddhism,' like all of 
Madame Blavatsky's works, was based upon whole- 
sale plagiarism and ignorance." 

Madame Blavatsky never succeeded in penetrating 
into Thibet, in whose sacred "lamaseries" and temples 

FIG. 40. MADAME BI-AVATSKY'9 AUTOGRAPH. 

dwell the wonderful Mahatmas of modern Theosophy, 
but William Woodville Rockhill, the American travel- 
ler and Oriental scholar, did, and we have a record of 
his adventures in "The Land of the Laas," published 
in 1891. While at Serkok, he visited a famous mon- 
astery inhabited by 700 lamas. He says (page 102): 



294 MADAME BLAVATSKY. 

"They asked endless questions concerning the state of 
Buddhism in foreign lands. They were astonished 
that it no longer existed in India, and that the church 
of Ceylon was so like the ancient Buddhist one. 
When told of our esoteric Buddhists, the Mahatmas, 
and of the wonderful doctrines they claimed to have 
obtained from Thibet, they were immensely amused. 
They declared that though in ancient times there were, 
doubtless, saints and sages who could perform some of 
the miracles now claimed by the Esoterists, none were 
living at the present day; and they looked upon this 
neAV school as rankly heretical, and as something ap- 
proaching an imposition on our credulity." 

"Isis Unveiled," and the "Secret Doctrine," by Ma- 
dame Blavatsky, are supposed to contain the completest 
exposition of Theosophy, or the inner spiritual meaning 
of the great religious cults of the world, but, as we have 
seen, they are full of plagiarisms and garbled state- 
ments, to say nothing of "spurious quotations from 
Buddhist sacred books, manufactured by the writer to 
embody her own peculiar views, under the fictitious 
guise of genuine Buddhism." This last quotation 
from Coleman strikes the keynote of the whole sub- 
ject. Esoteric Buddhism is a product of Occidental 



CONCLUSIONS. 295 

manufacture, a figment of Madame Blavatsky's ro- 
mantic imagination, and by no means represents the 
truth of Oriental philosophy. 

As Max Mueller, one of the greatest living Oriental 
scholars, has repeatedly stated, any attempt to read 
into Oriental thought our Western science and phil- 
osophy or to reconcile them, is futile to a degree; the 
two schools are as opposite to each other, as the nega- 
tive and positive poles of a magnet, Orientalism repre- 
senting the former, Occidentalism, the latter. Oriental 
philosophy with its Indeterminate Being (or pure 
nothing as the Absolute) ends in the utter negation of 
everything and affords no clue to the secret of the Uni- 
verse. If to believe that all is maya, (illusion), and that 
to be one with Brahma (absorbed like the rain drop in 
the ocean) constitutes the summum bonum of thinking, 
then there is no explanation of, or use for, evolution or 
progress of any kind. The effect of Hindoo phil- 
osophy has been stagnation, indifferentism, and, as a 
result, the Hindoo has no recorded history, no science, 
no art worthy the name. Compared to it see what 
Greek philosophy has done: it has transformed the 
Western world. Starting with Self-Determined Being, 
reason, self-activity, at the heart of the Universe, and 



296 MADAME BLAVATSKY. 

the creation of individual souls by a process of evolu- 
tion in time and space, and the unfolding of a splendid 
civilization are logical consequences. In the East, it 
is the destruction of self-hood; in the West the de- 
struction of selfishness, and the preservation of self- 
hood. 

Many noted Theosophists claim that modern Theo- 
sophy is not a religious cult, but simply an exposition 
of the esoteric, or inner spiritual meaning of the great 
religious teachers of the world. Let me quote what 
Solovyoff says on this point: 

"The Theosophical Society shockingly deceived 
those who joined it as members, in reliance on the regula- 
tions. It gradually grew evident that it was no uni- 
versal scientific brotherhood, to which the followers of 
all religions might with a clear conscience belong, but 
a group of persons who had begun to preach in their 
organ, The Theosophist, and in their other publications, 
a mixed religious doctrine. Finally, in the last years 
of Madame Blavatsky's life, even this doctrine gave 
place to a direct and open propaganda of the most or- 
thodox exoteric Buddhism, under the motto of 'Our Lord 
Buddha,' combined with incessant attacks on Chris- 
tianity. * * * Now, in 1893, as the direct effect 



CONCLUSIONS. 



297 



of this cause, we see an entire religious movement, we 
see a prosperous and growing plantation of Buddhism 
in Western Europe." 

As a last word let me add that if, in my opinion, 
modern Theosophy has no right to the high place it 
claims in the world of thought, it has performed its 
share in the noble fight against the crass materialism 
of our day, and, freed from the frauds that have too 
long darkened its poetical aspects, it may yet help 
to diffuse through the world the pure light of brotherly 
love and spiritual development. 



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sume" of spiritualism, its history and phenomena.) 

SINNETT, A. P. {Ed.) Incidents in the life of Mme. 
Blavatsky. London, 1886. 8vo. (Interesting, but replete 
with wildly improbable incidents, etc. Of little value as a 
life of the famous occultist.) 



The Occult World. London, 1885. 8vo. 
Esoteric Buddhism. London, 1888. 8vo. 



SOCIETY FOR PSYCHICAL RESEARCH: Proceedings. 
Vols. 1-11. [1882-95,] London, 1882-95. 8vo. (The most 
exhaustive researches yet set on foot by impartial inves- 
tigators. Scientific in character, and invaluable to the 
student. Psychical phases of spiritualism mostly dealt with.) 

TRUESDELL, JOHN W. The Bottom Facts Concerning 
the Science of Spiritualism: Derived from careful in- 
vestigations covering a period of twenty-five years. New 
York, 1883. 8vo. (Anti-spiritualistic. Exposes of physical 
phenomena : psychography, rope-tests, etc. Of its kind, a 
valuable contribution to the literature of the subject.) 

WEATHERLY, Dr. L. A., and MASKELYNE, J. N. The 
Supernatural. Bristol, Eng., 1891. 8vo. 

WILLMANN, CARL. Moderne Wunder. Leipsic, 1892. 
8vo. (Contains interesting accounts of Dr. Slade's Berlin 
and Leipsic experiences. It is written by a professional 
conjurer. Anti-spiritualistic.) 

WOODBURY, WALTER E. Photographic Amusements. 
New York, 1896. 8vo. (Contains some interesting accounts 
of so-called spirit photography.) 



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